Poster of Transcendence

Transcendence

Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

Director: Wally Pfister

Release Date: April 18, 2014

Where to Watch

I understand what the filmmakers hoped that Transcendence would be, but the movie science is so ridiculous that even anti-vaxxers wouldn’t buy it. Transcendence was supposed to be an epic love story that transcends all known barriers so a couple could be together forever with a Terminator apocalyptic veneer to attract a summer audience. It isn’t even a real singularity apocalypse. Bah! Unlike Lucy, Transcendence explicitly vies for god status. If you buy that Johnny Depp is god who wants to create a paradise complete with tons of Biblical imagery-Jesus miracles, gardens, water as a symbol of God, but is rejected by mankind, you may like Transcendence. Unfortunately Transcendence can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be so it ends up being nothing. I had Twilight flashbacks with all the characters wanting something, getting it then being deeply unhappy when they got it. Remember when Morgan Freeman was a stamp of quality for a movie–no more! Thanks, Lucy and Transcendence. Same warning goes to Johnny Depp starring in a movie. Clifton Collins Jr. and Josh Stewart are good actors, but they unfortunately appear in films and television shows (The Event and No Ordinary Family respectively) of questionable quality where they are usually the best part of the project, and Transcendence is no different. How dare a movie have Xander Berkeley in it, and he says not one word! His character is actually fairly crucial to the plot and only appears briefly in the opening sequence so I suspect that his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Huge mistake–I think that it may have made the plot somewhat believable. The cast is great so I’m glad that everyone paid their mortgage, but skip Transcendence.

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