Happy New Year, dear readers! For all of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a good one, and it’s at last time for us to ring in 2014. This slightly belated first Trailer Trashin’ column of the year takes a look at another of my anticipated films of this year, Transcendence.
Premise: Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the foremost researcher in the field of artificial intelligence, working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His highly controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists who will do whatever it takes to stop him. But in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed – to be a participant in his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, the question is not if they can…but if they should. Their worst fears are realized as Will’s thirst for knowledge evolves into a seemingly omnipresent quest for power, to an unknown end. But one thing is becoming terrifyingly clear – there may be no way to stop him.
One of the biggest things that has me interested in Transcendence is the cast. Obviously, the big focus is on Johnny Depp as Dr. Will Caster, the AI researcher who has his mind uploaded into the machine. Depp is a good actor, but he’s also become a bit of a punchline in recent years for continually giving cartoonish performances in bloated tent-pole movies like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels and last year’s The Lone Ranger. But this looks like it could be a return to darker, more complex work for him, and I hope that’s the case. Rebecca Hall, who appeared in Iron Man 3 and Closed Circuit last year, plays Will’s wife Evelyn, and I like that this trailer makes it clear that all the bad stuff which ends up happening is, inadvertently, her fault, which suggests some interesting story possibilities for her. Paul Bettany plays Max Waters, Will’s best friend, and it looks like he’ll probably be serving as a voice of reason. Morgan Freeman plays a character named Joseph, who we briefly see, and I’m sure he’ll bring his usual gravitas. Kate Mara plays Bree, who I presume is the blonde woman we see talking to Max at one point. Other names in the cast include Cillian Murphy, Cole Hauser, and Clifton Collins, Jr.
As I mentioned earlier, Transcendence is the directorial debut of cinematographer Wally Pfister. Pfister is best-known for his work with director Christopher Nolan, and he has shot every one of Nolan’s films from Memento (2000) to The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Pfister’s other works include The Italian Job (2003), Slow Burn (2005), and Moneyball (2011). And as you would expect from such an accomplished director of photography, the imagery we see in this trailer is really impressive. I especially liked how much texture the images have. There’s a danger when shooting films dealing with cutting-edge tech that the visuals can end up being so clean and clinical that they become boring. And even though I’m sure it makes no sense from a technical perspective, I think the visual of Johnny Depp with all the black phone jacks plugged into his head is a great cinematic image.
Johnny Depp in “Transcendence.”
At this point, my only hang-up is that I suspect the story isn’t going to have much in the way of surprises. Unless they go for a complete downer conclusion where the AI takes over and humanity is doomed, I feel pretty confident that the ending will have Will being stopped in some way. The only question is whether the heroes will come up with some kind of program to destroy the AI or if someone – most likely Evelyn – will get through to what’s left of Will and, when he realizes what a monster he’s become, he will do away with himself out of remorse. And while I’ve enjoyed plenty of sci-fi films of this type, there something about the message of “there are things man wasn’t meant to know” that I find to be irritatingly Luddite, and I suspect that Transcendence will on some level say that the anti-technology extremists were right all along, or at least had a point. Just once, it’d be nice to see a movie like this where the scientists – you know, the people who are trying to help humanity advance and move forward – are unquestionably the heroes.
But my issues about what the story might be aside, I’m still really looking forward to this. We’ve got a great cast, some cool imagery, and a premise with a lot of potential. If Wally Pfister can pull this off, I think he’s looking at a promising directorial career going forward. When the middle of April rolls around, I’m definitely going to be checking out Transcendence.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Cole Hauser, Paul Bettany, Clifton Collins, Jr., and Cory Hardrict
Director: Wally Pfister
Writer: Jack Paglen
Timothy Monforton