So you got the basic set-up from that trailer. Right, problem number one this movie has; it has absolutely no idea what it's talking about. This movie takes place in a world where scientists can give lectures that are more simplistic and empty than most TED talks to a room of their peers. A world where a radical anti-technology group can somehow get their hands on a radiation laced bullet. Where a scientist working on a massive AI program that already has produced surprising results can just shut it down on a whim, walk out with some of the servers, and everyone's OK with that. Where the entire content of a human mind can be uploaded online in seconds, and somehow access the entire internet, without a central server, faster than any possible download speed. And this goes on and on, getting dumber and dumber, getting super stupid when the nanotech, which might as well act as fairy dust, enters the story.
Now I'm not saying that every sci-fi movie has to be 2001, I like big dumb films too, but the problem is that this film doesn't realise that this stuff is stupid. It's trying to be this big thoughtful story, but the whole thing is less plausible than the "1996 Apple Mac that's compatible with an alien mothership" from Independence Day, a movie that revels in its dumbness. For example, there's a scene where characters are trying to get data from someone that's been made a cyborg with the nanotech, to extract some of the programming. I thought going into this scene "how are they going to do that, stick a USB cable up his arse?". They then actually showed them dropping a blood sample onto a USB stick. And that worked. I got a lot of funny looks from other people in the cinema laughing at that. I laughed even more when they showed what exactly the big plan to stop Edward Cyberhands was, I think I might I have spoiled the film for everyone.
Actually, maybe I didn't, because the film is bad in a whole bunch more ways beyond the technical matters. I'm not joking when I say there's no-one with anything approaching a real personality in the entire thing. The whole concept of the story involves working out how Jack Sparrow's character has changed in being saved to a floppy, but that would rely on him having a character. He's a cypher before, and it's nought to Komplex in minutes afterwards. His wife isn't much better, going along with pretty much everything, until she finds that he's been monitoring her biorhythms. The fact that this is the final straw when he's already been shown to be making people into the fucking Borg makes her seem ridiculously self-absorbed. The film also expects you to start sympathising with the terrorists at one point, when not only is their actual beef with AI research not at all fleshed out, they were also shown as being gits about killing innocent people early on. I won't even get into some of the extra stupid final plot twists that just make no sense, especially since they rely on SkyDepp doing something out of character both for an ultra-logical AI and uploaded loving husband.
On top of everything else, this is just plain dull. I hate having to do this to such a big profile directorial debut, but Wally Pfister's direction is flat and unengaging. Scenes go on awkwardly too long, there's no decent sense of time passing, it destroys all tension by having an unnecessary flash-forward at the start, the climax is a joke, and all the cast look bored to be there, especially Depp. Mind, it's hard to say if most of these points are Pfister's fault, or more the writer Jack Paglen, although I'm leaning towards the latter given the rest of the evidence. If I didn't already think that the proposed Battlestar Galactica reboot (yes, another one!) was a bad idea, him announced as screenwriter has cemented that. A much anticipated film with studio backing and an impressive cast and crew, with big, weighty ambitions, but one dumber and far less enjoyable than a lot of the other schlock that fill its particular sub-genre? It's this year's Prometheus! (Yeah I went there!)
I do have some good news though. If some of the ideas in that trailer (a scientist reborn as an artificial conciousness, the fear of our own technology, the first sign of the singularity) interested you, there is out now a far better movie based on those concepts! It's a lower budget British movie called The Machine...
It has a genuinely thoughtful script, real tension, a gorgeous aesthetic, fantastic performances, a good handle on demonstrating it's big ideas to the audience, use of actual science, and a kick-arse action finale! It's everything Transcendence should have been, half an hour shorter and made for about 1% the budget. So yeah, go buy that instead!
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