Transcendence

At its most basic, Transcendence is not as stupid as some people who in their joy at having discovered a couple of holes in the logic have claimed. At its core, it’s a pretty decent sci-fi premise that greatly suffers from the behaviour of the main characters, which at times feels really weird and stupid. The actors are good, the technical aspect is fine, too, but I have a problem with its hysterical technophobic tone. Yet, in spite of all the issues (mostly in the script) that Transcendence has, it is still a pretty watchable movie. But somewhere deep inside there is potential for a lot more, that much is clear. (02/07/2014)

Technology is a good servant, but a bad master that will steal your soul, ok? It gives the impression that Pfister is a senile old man (while he’s so young) who would "ban all those internets!". And he decided to share this attitude with the world through this would-be “techno"-thriller where the attitude to everyday technologies is like that your great-great grand-father would have if you went back in time and tried to explain to him what the Internet, cloud computing, uploading/downloading is. This is all very unintentionally funny, little seen method, but this is paradoxically the most minor problem that Transcendence suffers from. Much worse it that in the second half, Pfister gains a thirst for pontification and so he starts preaching about the state of society, the world, the contents of your fridge, the heavens... Simply anything that happened to occur to him or bug him during filming. The only thing is that he’s really dumb in what he says and how he says it. If onto this “quasi-Malick-like" concept, you graft scenes like IT guys cum FBI agents jumping out of a tunnel in the middle of the desert, armed to the teeth to do a bit of ratatatat in the direction of some nano-zombies while spouting wisdom such as “don’t go near them or they will infect you with a virus and upload your mind to their cloud" (meant of course absolutely seriously), then there remains nothing else to do but shake your head in disbelief or beat the table with it or else just make cruel fun out of the creators. And that is the only level where Pfister’s debut works outstandingly well. (28/08/2014)

We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time. This movie could’ve been saved by a single thing – if it suddenly turned black-and-white and Johnny Depp appeared before Rebecca Hall wearing an angora sweater. After the premiere, I heard three girls of about eight gushing about how they’d write on their blogs that they’ve been to the new Johnny Depp flick and how great it was. So don’t hang your head and go watch this. After all, it’s executive produced by Christopher Nolan, so what more could you possibly desire? (16/04/2014)

I get the feeling that Wally Pfister bit off more than he could chew and couldn't transform his ambitions into a form that would allow us to speak about Transcendence as a powerful experience. The position of a director is simply more demanding than that of a cinematographer. Pfister evidently tried to shoot not only an entertaining genre film but above all a film with a deeper meaning. The result is a strange mishmash that neither entertains nor gives the impression of an artistic work. What good is it to engage a significant personality and acting chameleon Johnny Depp when the director tries to suppress him and he doesn't really fit into such a role typologically? He is simply wasted in it, and I can think of a dozen better candidates who would have been much more effective. The prevailing feeling in the end is disappointment and the impression that I have in front of me a grandiose but pathetic-looking B-movie. Overall impression: 40%. (17/03/2016)

This is what a film would look like if Christopher Nolan got high, drunk, and filmed a philosophical sci-fi in a cheerful mood with a lot of unanswered questions about saving the world. It’s hard to understand how so many renowned names and relatively solid actors could agree to such a screenplay travesty, because I can't remember a worse job by a screenwriter in a blockbuster in recent memory. Nothing works, neither the emotions, nor the logic of the plot, nor the chemistry of the characters. Incredibly poorly directed flop. (16/04/2015)