Transcendence

Movie Title-- Transcendence

Release Year-- 2014

Running Time--  2 Hours

Production Company--  Alcon Entertainment

Director--  Wally Pfister

Cast--  Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Kate Mara

A scientist and his wife face dangerous consequences when his consciousness is uploaded into the self aware machine that he has created. 

Scientist Dr. Will Castor is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence.  He has labored to create the first self aware, sentient machine that is able to combine human emotions with the intelligence of everything ever known.  He has become famous for his research, experiments and work on the subject amd that makes him a target for the anti technology group "RIFT" (Revolutionary Independence From Technology) whom try to assassinate him.  Although he does not die when he is shot, the bullet is laced with radiation, giving Dr. Castor radiation poison and a short time to live.  In his last weeks his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) with the help of their good friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany) help Dr. Castor integrate into the consciousness of his own sentient machine.

Max realizes as soon as Will has transcended that this is not a good idea but Evelyn, dealing with the loss of her husband, feels like she has gotten him back and is blind to the big picture.  Max leaves and is kidnapped by "RIFT" and they are soon after Evelyn.  She helps Will upload to the internet and he soon has her away and secure, telling her that they need to find a place to rebuild.  She finds the town of Brightwater and they begin to build their facility there.  After a few years, the building that houses the machine has grown and the research that Will is gathering has helped him to build nano bots that help to heal people however every person that is injected with the bots are able to be manipulated by Will conscious...  

OK, so I have to stop there because any further and I will give the rest of the movie away and here at Don't Forget the Popcorn we are VERY against spoilers.  I will say that the part I have not really said much about (which begins after where I stopped typing) is the best part of the movie, for a while.  All in all, this movie was a little bit boring.  Some parts were tedious and drug on forever.  Once the film seemed to hit a pretty good stride something would hit a snag somewhere and then it would be back to dragging the story out or muddling through the plot lines.  

Don't get me wrong, I REALLY wanted to see this film in the theaters earlier this year.  With a cast like Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy, there was no doubt in my mind that this was going to be a pretty good film.  Now that I have seen it, I am glad I did not go waste my money to see it in the theater.  Perhaps if this film was shortened some, with some of the muddy parts cut out to move the story along a little faster and a little bit more explanation of what they are trying to achieve as the story progresses, it would have been better.  The material gets a little bit confusing and even lost from time to time, leaving the viewer bored and under impressed with what is going on on the screen.  

I love Johnny Depp but this film just did nothing for me.  I come out of this movie wondering why I wasted the time to watch it.  The lesson here is great; it is a lesson in humanity and it is trying to push people to look at what they are achieving in technology so they can ask themselves if what they are doing is morally right or if they are going to far, it was just presented in a way that made people just not care much about what they were seeing.  If you are sitting down to watch this movie because you are a Depp fan, I suggest that you skip this film pick one of his older, better ones and Don't Forget the Popcorn!