The only reason I wanted to see this movie was because it has a good cast. I didn't really care that it was directed by Wally Pfister (Christopher Nolan's go-to cinematographer) and after viewing trailers I wasn't all that interested in the general storyline. My expectations were especially low after seeing the awful reviews it was receiving, but I have to say now that I've seen the movie, I disagree with the negative reviews because I really enjoyed 'Transcendence'.
However, 'Transcendence' is far from a perfect movie. The movie is quite poorly written at many points, it doesn't explain things properly and it's wildly unrealistic. I often found myself thinking that the movie seemed to be using lots of long, complicated scientific words to try and make its explanations sound more substantial, when in reality there isn't really any explanation to have substance given to. The characters aren't fully realized, there's never any real drama between them and there isn't any clear protagonist which makes it hard to relate with anyone in the movie. There are a few large time jumps, which I dislike in most movies and here they are no exception. The concept of this movie is great and somewhat thought-provoking, but much like the characters is never fully realized. 'Transcendence' also feels like it's desperately trying to have an 'Inception' style ending, but it actually completely fails at doing so.
Even though a lot of the writing is awful, the story was still engaging enough for me to enjoy watching it, and the concept is great, but it would have worked much better had it not been restricted to a two hour movie. If this were a ten hour mini-series it could have been incredible. There are so many strands left hanging and concepts not developed upon that it's frustrating that the filmmakers didn't try and explore and expand on this movie some more. Because there is no clear protagonist, that means that a lot of the actors get less screen time than I would have liked them to have. For example, Kate Mara is one of my favourite actresses and she was one of the main reasons I decided to see this movie, but she has nothing of any real importance to do in the film. She doesn't give a bad performance, but there was nothing for her to really showcase her excellent acting ability. I feel the same way about Cillian Murphy, who was drastically underused, and even Morgan Freeman didn't have much to do. Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany are both excellent though, they easily give the best performances in the movie and dominate the screen whenever they appear, they were the only two performers to genuinely impress me. Johnny Depp doesn't give a bad performance, but he wasn't impressive at all because it felt like his role could have been done by anyone, and they just used Johnny Depp to ensure more people would see the movie.
Although it may sound like I'm being overwhelmingly negative, I want to stress again that I do actually like this movie. It starts off really well, but begins to just become a mess towards the end, albeit an enjoyable mess. It's just important to highlight that there were so many things within 'Transcendence' that could have been put to far better use. This is more than likely due to Wally Pfister's lack of directing experience, but 'Transcendence' is still a decent first effort. The movie is nice to look at with good cinematography, but that was expected with a movie from the guy who shot many of Nolan's movies. The CGI is passable, at times it looks weird and clunky but isn't too distracting. 'Transcendence' has no real soul or uniqueness to it, it feels quite bland and should have had some heart. Nothing about this movie is amazing and even though it really could have been, I'm happy with settling for it being just okay. It's a great example of missed potential, but what we did get with 'Transcendence' was still pretty enjoyable anyway.
However, 'Transcendence' is far from a perfect movie. The movie is quite poorly written at many points, it doesn't explain things properly and it's wildly unrealistic. I often found myself thinking that the movie seemed to be using lots of long, complicated scientific words to try and make its explanations sound more substantial, when in reality there isn't really any explanation to have substance given to. The characters aren't fully realized, there's never any real drama between them and there isn't any clear protagonist which makes it hard to relate with anyone in the movie. There are a few large time jumps, which I dislike in most movies and here they are no exception. The concept of this movie is great and somewhat thought-provoking, but much like the characters is never fully realized. 'Transcendence' also feels like it's desperately trying to have an 'Inception' style ending, but it actually completely fails at doing so.
Even though a lot of the writing is awful, the story was still engaging enough for me to enjoy watching it, and the concept is great, but it would have worked much better had it not been restricted to a two hour movie. If this were a ten hour mini-series it could have been incredible. There are so many strands left hanging and concepts not developed upon that it's frustrating that the filmmakers didn't try and explore and expand on this movie some more. Because there is no clear protagonist, that means that a lot of the actors get less screen time than I would have liked them to have. For example, Kate Mara is one of my favourite actresses and she was one of the main reasons I decided to see this movie, but she has nothing of any real importance to do in the film. She doesn't give a bad performance, but there was nothing for her to really showcase her excellent acting ability. I feel the same way about Cillian Murphy, who was drastically underused, and even Morgan Freeman didn't have much to do. Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany are both excellent though, they easily give the best performances in the movie and dominate the screen whenever they appear, they were the only two performers to genuinely impress me. Johnny Depp doesn't give a bad performance, but he wasn't impressive at all because it felt like his role could have been done by anyone, and they just used Johnny Depp to ensure more people would see the movie.
Although it may sound like I'm being overwhelmingly negative, I want to stress again that I do actually like this movie. It starts off really well, but begins to just become a mess towards the end, albeit an enjoyable mess. It's just important to highlight that there were so many things within 'Transcendence' that could have been put to far better use. This is more than likely due to Wally Pfister's lack of directing experience, but 'Transcendence' is still a decent first effort. The movie is nice to look at with good cinematography, but that was expected with a movie from the guy who shot many of Nolan's movies. The CGI is passable, at times it looks weird and clunky but isn't too distracting. 'Transcendence' has no real soul or uniqueness to it, it feels quite bland and should have had some heart. Nothing about this movie is amazing and even though it really could have been, I'm happy with settling for it being just okay. It's a great example of missed potential, but what we did get with 'Transcendence' was still pretty enjoyable anyway.