“Transcendence”

Rated PG-13 for Science Fiction action and violence, some bloody images, brief strong language and sensuality

I must have missed it in the news, but I am pretty sure that Johnny Depp was kidnapped by aliens and had his veins injected with Crazy Glue.  He still dresses like a schizophrenic shopper at Goodwill so there is some Johnny in Johnny, just no depth in Depp. “Transcendence” is about a scientist who is turned into a machine … no need for the “turned” part; he was one before the transcendence in Transcendence.

SPOILER ALERT: If you want to waste your money and go see this movie stop reading. Otherwise I am going to tell you what happens. In which case, this is a NON-SPOILER ALERT because if you read and heed me, your movie experience, in regard to “Transcendence,” will be NON-SPOILED.

Mr. Depp is Dr. Will Caster, a big brainiac in the field of artificial intelligence. He is married to Evelyn, also a brainiac scientist but she might as well be a cocker spaniel for all the evidence of her intelligence; she is loyal to her master, however. Dr. Caster has his true-blue science geek pals; one is Morgan Freeman and the other is Paul Bettany. They both love the husband and wife geniuses; it is all one big happy famigeeky … except Mr. Freeman’s character works for the Department of Defense and Dr. Will is much too ethical to work for any purpose unless it is for peace and the good of all mankind. 

However, his company is trying to build a big honker of a computer that will know everything. And this computer will do things like cure cancer, turn toxic rivers and streams into crystal clear, pollution-free, and drinkable from-the-banks water apparently keeping us from having to buy it in plastic bottles that end up in landfills, and, of course, make lame men walk and blind men see. And another thing: the computers will make the average man lift 800 pound steel pipes without blowing out his entrails.

The Luddites (anti-technology terrorists) don’t like that and so they kill something like 40 computer programmers with a single teeny-tiny cake that would, in reality, just maybe feed me and the frosting-thief with whom I live. Then they shoot Dr. Will.

At first we think Dr. Will survives but turns out the “ludtechs” laced the bullet with radiation so Dr. Will would suffer a slow lingering death, which gives him just enough time for his best bud and his wife to upload him up in the big-butt computer and then … and then … you won’t believe this: He controls every computer in the WORLD! And the power grid! And he becomes the Big Giant Head on computer monitors … and you know what evil the Big Giant Depp-Head does? He cures cancer and blindness and other stuff like that. Except he adds just a little of himself in his “repairees.” Healing all these people has a slight side-effect. They must also have an actectemy: act·ec·to·my. Noun AK-ˈek-tə-mē plural act·ec·to·mies: surgical excision of the organ which allows a person to act.

Clearly we can’t have all this healing going on. The medical industry will go livid, and we won’t be able to see any more infomercials about our [Mr. Schaefer’s censor has deleted offensive terms, phrases and words, which reference sexual organs — we apologize for his uncouth sarcastic vulgarity — good thing you didn’t have to read it]. So the military (playing the good guys for once but led by Morgan Freeman) and his former-Best Bud and the Ludtechs all join together to kill Depp-Head and his mega-computer. Of course, they win, and then a Y2K process starts and phones go down, all power is lost, computers become door stops and life looks like skid row and everybody is miserable (and when I say miserable, I am referring to the people on the screen and those watching the screen).

After I left the theater, I tried to figure out what was so terrible about a giant computer that collected all the data in the world and healed the disabled and cleaned up the environment.  The NSA, VISA, AmEx, eBay, PayPal, Discover, the Home Shopping Network, AT&T, Verizon, IRS, SSA, AARP, the big three credit rating companies … don’t they have all that data already? So, why can’t they cure cancer and repair my aching back or fix my sinuses or restore my full head of hair? I think we are being cheated. This Dr. Will character just took all the existing databases and put them together, and he is supposed to be a villain?  Except for the actectomy business on the invalids, I think it seems like a good deal. What do I care if Dr. Will 1.) dresses poorly; 2.) has a bad haircut; and 3.) has a personality that seem like he is overdosing on Prozac? So what if a few people turn into Johnny Depp dullards? Small price to pay if you ask me.

Where can we get some of that disease-free, pollution-free, and starvation free transcendence? No, not that one-bow-tie type of “Transcendence,” I mean the five-bow-tie type of transcendence. This dull, boring, illogical, and plodding “Transcendence” gets one untied bow tie.