Transcendence
25/04/2014
Director: Wally Pfister
Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Josh Stewart and Clifton Collins Jr
Writer: Jack Paglen
The term “Singularity” is often used to refer to a moment in human history that is still yet to come, but is nevertheless on the horizon and emerging quickly as technology continues to evolve. The term was first used by Mathematician John Von Neumann, who said "The ever accelerating progress of technology ... gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue."
The term has been popularized by many people over the years, ranging from legendary Science-Fiction author Isaac Asimov, to Transhumanist Futurist Ray Kurzweil. Specifically this technological singularity refers to a point where artificial intelligences transcend levels of human intelligence and its potential implications to enhance human existence. It has also come to refer to the advent of nanotechnology and the incorporation of such augmentations to humans. Essentially, it’s potentially the next great era for the 21st Century, so understandably it has become a very popular setting for science-fiction in both video games and film.
Specifically, Transcendence is about Doctor Will Caster (Johnny Depp) who, along with his peers, become the targets of a mass-coordinated attack on laboratories across the United States focusing on Artificial Intelligences. More specifically, the film is about Caster’s wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) as she deals with the consequences of uploading her dying husband’s consciousness and her attempts to reconcile the ever-growing changes in her husband. Let alone the question of whether or not the consciousness is even the man she knew and loved when it inhabited a human body. So how does Transcendence deal with discussing this subject?
The answer is poorly. It’s Wally Pfister’s directorial debut, a man well known for his cinematography on Christopher Nolan films from Memento to The Dark Knight Rises and the first film written by screenwriter Jack Paglen. It’s a formidable attempt from the pair as far as the construction of the film is concerned as well as its core premise but it just falls flat. Transcendence has a very impressive cast who do a tremendous job of carrying the film, especially Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany, but the story and the pacing are what hold it back. The cast of characters gets spread too thin, so much that key characters disappear and are swiftly forgotten about for long periods of time while the film focuses its attention elsewhere without doing enough to associate its relevance to those characters in the background. Not to mention the characters have about as much emotion as a depressed Siri, which would actually work in the film’s favour if it was juxtaposed against an opposition of highly expressive characters but instead the viewer is left with an entire cast of people they have no real reason to like. It’s almost like being subjected to a group of humourless drones assigned to progress the plot.
Pacing is another issue, the story maintains one speed throughout its entire runtime and to the extent that high-impact scenes lose their value let alone intrigue. There are also montages that seem to accomplish extremely little while primarily focusing on shots of nature or landscape and show the characters doing not much of anything. The shots are beautifully composed, but sometimes it feels like the audience is being shown the folio of a photography student rather than a manipulation in the passage of time. In conjunction with the dialogue, Transcendence turns into a balancing act of vomiting exposition and an attempt to show the story rather than telling while unfortunately showing the audience… Nothing. That said, all of the above would have been more tolerable if Mychael Danna’s beautiful music score wasn’t so horribly abused by playing throughout the entirety of the film as it seems that Pfister doesn’t understand when scenes need to have foley sound acting as ambience in place of musical accompaniment.
The curious thing is that even after all of these observations and gripes I find myself unable to walk away from Transcendence while thinking that I hated it. I applaud it for its setting as well as premise as it’s a valiant effort from Pfister (God that’s an unfortunate surname) and Paglen as I am still able to appreciate it. I can see myself watching it again, but I can’t say that I would necessarily recommend the film to everyone. Ray Kurzweil once said
“Science fiction is the great opportunity to speculate on what could happen. It does give me, as a futurist, scenarios.”
I hope Transcendence is merely a stepping stone for modern science-fiction films addressing the quandaries of the Singularity. I hope things continue to progress so that we may see stronger efforts utilizing these settings like video games have with the Deus Ex franchise and Metal Gear Solid to name a few. Ultimately Transcendence is a lifeless hulk waiting for a better and more fleshed out idea.
Highlight: That point where one line of dialogue made the entire theatre audience look at each other and laugh as they realized that the film had jumped the shark on an idea that wasn’t at all far-fetched for its topic.
Rating: 5.5/10