To follow The Railway Man,
I wanted something stupid that still took itself seriously. From the trailers, Transcendence
looked like it would be just that. Johnny Depp uploads his consciousness to
a computer and becomes something greater than humanity. Unfortunately, there
was rather too much of the serious and not enough of the stupid. Yes, they end
up attacking a transcendent being with a bunch of guns and mortars, but the
entertainment value here is extremely low.
The concept neatly skirts the
interesting question of what would happen if someone uploaded their
consciousness but also still had their original mind by having it happen when
Depp’s character is dying. The cause? A terrorist group who think the
technology he is developing is dangerous. Which of course it is, and provides
antagonists/saviours later on.
There are so many things that
are stupid. With this sort of nanotechnology why doesn’t Depp immediately build
a body? Why isn’t he making self-contained units so that the system can persist
no matter what? Why create a huge conspicuous headquarters when the technology
could be incredibly discreet? And why on earth start enhancing and controlling
humans against their will when it’s obvious where that would lead. Of course,
taking this where something with transcendental intelligence would actually
take it would mean no story, but in all honesty there was next to no story
anyway.
I wasn’t expecting much, but
this was a disappointment anyway. Which is pretty damning!
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