Transcendence

For months I have been looking forward to this movie, and have been following the marketing with keen interest. When early reviews first came out, and were negative, I began to get a little nervous. Nevertheless, I went into this movie with reasonable expectations, and can't help but feel disappointed with the results. Transcendence isn't as terrible as many critics are saying, it's just not that great. There are positives to this movie however, and I want to address those first. The concept, and themes this movie explores are quite intriguing and thought-provoking, and as I look back on the film, the concept alone is what I think about. The director of this film is a long time cinematographer, and I must admit that the camera shots in this movie are very well crafted, and sometimes beautiful. Overall the acting is also acceptable. Johnny Depp however, was very good in his role. Admittedly, I am a fan of his goofy Captain Jack Sparrow, however I appreciate him taking on more serious roles as he is every bit the talented actor he shows here. Rebecca Hall also demonstrated some ability in her lead role, and was actually quite good. The rest of the cast which includes Morgan Freeman, Kate Mara and Paul Bettany aren't given much to do in the script itself, but are all good in their individual roles. Through the first forty-five minutes of this movie I was with the story, intrigued by what was happening in the plot, and enjoying the film as a whole. There came a point in the film however, which I will not reveal because of potential spoilers, where the movie lost me. Its plot became muddled, the passing of time within the movie itself became confusing, and the movie became unbelievable to a fault. It started relatively grounded in reality, but as it went on, it became less and less believable. This is not to say that there aren't some very good moments in the last two thirds. There are a few imaginative ideas explored, and a few interesting looking special effects on display. I will applaud Transcendence for not going out of its way to showcase CGI. It does quite a good job of making the special effects work with the story, without feeling gratuitous. If only the rest of the story was better thought out, this movie could have been very good. Overall, Transcendence has a very interesting premise, and showed real potential near the beginning but it lost its way. The writing and the plot became disorganized and a bit messy as the movie went on. There were a few very good moments here, a few genuinely bad scenes, and a lot of okay bits, which add up to an overall so-so movie. It tried hard to be the next thought-provoking sci-fi thriller such as Inception, but somehow got lost along the way. If you find Transcendence on cable or on Netflix, you may enjoy it if you give it a try. However I do not recommend going out to the theater and spending your money to see this.