Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Max Waters, and Morgan Freeman
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 119 mins. Reviewed in Apr 2014
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This is a British-American, science-fiction thriller about a research scientist facing death who is brought back to life as a digitally advanced, super-computer.
Dr Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is a renowned research scientist, who works in the field of artificial intelligence. His research is pioneering and controversial. Caster’s scientific goal is to create a computer that will combine universal knowledge, which is knowledge about everything, with the human capacity to experience “emotional expressivity and self-awareness”. The combination of universal knowledge with the full range of human emotion is known as “transcendence”, and it gives the meaning of the film’s title. Some people fear technological advancement going that far, and are threatened by Caster’s progress. Working closely with him are his partner-scientist wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), and his partner-scientist friend, Paul Bretanny (Max Waters). Paul, in particular, has doubts.
Behind Caster’s goal is the desire to achieve the control that “transcendence” will bring to anyone who has complete knowledge. One of the tag-lines of the movie is: “What if a new intelligence was born?”, and the rewards of achieving transcendence are those that drive Caster forward. No scientist ever before has produced a computer that does not require a human operator to have anything to do with it. Representing a different point of view, Morgan Freeman is a fellow-computer scientist, Joseph Tagger, who is friendly both to Caster and the FBI, and believes that “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should”.
Anti-technology extremists plot to kill Caster, who is struck down by them and left dying. His imminent death, however, provides an unique chance to test the results of his work. At death’s door by a radioactive gunshot wound, Caster has a chance to stay alive. With the help of his wife, Evelyn, he becomes a digital version of his former self when she uploads his mind to a powerful computer. In his new form, Caster attempts to use complete knowledge to gain power and total control, and Evelyn becomes alarmed at what she sees happening. The resolution of it all rests with the love Will and Evelyn have for each other.
The themes that computers are independent of humans, or consciousness is controlled completely in some way, have a long history in movies. They have emerged a number of times in movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), where a murderous computer called “Hal” tried to take control of a space-ship; and they have appeared in “The Matrix” (1999), and “Inception” (2010) – photographed by Wally Pfister, the Director of this movie – and most recently in “Her” (2013). This movie instils a sense of deja vu, the feeling that past movies have dealt with some of the major issues before.
The movie highlights a range of philosophical and moral dilemmas associated with radical changes to human consciousness. We are asked to consider, for instance, whether we can “evolve the future” without technology? Are there are limits to the degree of control that technology can achieve? And should technology be allowed ethically to combine human feelings with computer-determined consciousness? The movie “Her” took us brilliantly to the limits of this third question. This movie puts the same theme into the sci-fi context in a much more plot-complex way.
Movies like “The Matrix” and “Inception” suspended credibility by using fast-paced adventure scenarios, but this movie tries to achieve plausibility by anchoring itself to Science. The movie’s ultimate focus is on the scientific consequences of what can happen when human consciousness is interfered with by those who wish to control it, and it flirts highly imaginatively with the problems and perils of advanced technology.
Pfister’s direction of the movie is smart and edgy. The movie is a dark one, given the seriousness of the issues at stake, and the presence of some horror touches in its plot. Despite over-expansiveness in the sweep of its ideas, the movie is photographed and acted well, and builds up solid tension between technology’s “promise and its perils”.
This movie is thinking sci-fi that points us entertainingly towards some terrifying possibilities of computer-intelligence that, in the film’s own words, aims to create “your own God”.
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