By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Johnny Depp was once the hottest star in Hollywood, and though he’s cooled off since then, the mercurial star will always be fondly remembered for his greatest roles like Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, Captain Jack Sparrow, and of course, Dr. Will Caster. If you don’t recognize that last one, don’t worry, Depp’s portrayal of the genius scientist at the forefront of A.I. technology was a financial disaster for Warner Bros. Transcendence managed to be both years ahead of its time, and a throwback to old-school sci-fi of the 50s, and now it’s streaming for free on Amazon Prime Video.
Johnny Depp Is The Digital Man
Dr. Will Caster is killed early on in Transcendence thanks to radiation poisoning from a polonium-laced bullet that gave him long enough to have his consciousness uploaded into a quantum computer. Though his best friend, Max (Paul Bettany) argues against it, Will’s wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), grants the now digital doctor access to the internet, freeing him from the confines of the closed network. Using his mastery of technology now that he’s a digital man, Will turns a small desert town into a utopia.
If you guessed that things aren’t what they seem, then that means you’ve seen a movie before. As Transcendence keeps rolling along, we get to see Will demonstrate his vast powers, increased to near-Godlike levels (he even restores sight to a blind man), thanks to nanomachines, while he starts losing his humanity. The script, which was on top of the 2012 Blacklist of most sought after unproduced films, considers subtext something to be used by cowards, which makes the third act either the worst of modern sci-fi, or the best, depending on how much Mystery Science Theater 3000 you’ve watched.
A Stacked Cast Couldn’t Save Transcendence
It’s not that the cast doesn’t try, after all, it’s a surprising murderer’s row of stars including Kate Mara as Bree, the leader of the anti-technology group, Cillian Murphy, a decade before Oppenheimer, as a FBI, and Cole Hauser, future Yellowstone breakout star, as a military officer. In a stretch from his usual roles, Morgan Freeman is the authoritative, wise mentor of the Carters, Dr. Joseph Tagger, during the era when it seemed like he was in every movie. Transcendence is a strange time capsule of the 00s where rising and falling stars happened to converge.
Transcendence also falls into that strange category of movie where it’s been seemingly forgotten. During its theatrical run, the film managed to earn only $23 million in the States and $100 million worldwide, which left the film short of even recouping its $150 million production budget. Rio 2 defeated Johnny Depp during the movie’s opening weekend, and the animated birds had already been out for a week.
Transcendence Is A Film For No One
A man losing touch with humanity as a result of an experiment gone wrong isn’t a new plot in the world of science fiction, going back to 1958’s The Amazing Colossal Man, or 1933’s The Invisible Man. Transcendence hits all the same story beats, made clear even during the film’s first trailer, which is likely why audiences decided to stay away from the theaters: they’ve seen this before. It’s even a case of both critics and fans agreeing on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 19 percent rotten and a 37 percent rating respectively, it raises the question, who is this movie even for?
Other films have flopped in theaters but gone on to become streaming hits, with the most recent example, Kraven the Hunter, spending over a week at the top of Netflix’s charts. Transcendence….hasn’t. For all the faults that can be blamed on the modern streaming era, the one good thing is that it’s made it easier to watch movies you’d never pay to see in theaters and judge for yourself, is this boring, derivative dreck, or an undiscovered cult classic?
Transcendence is streaming for free, and without a subscription, on Amazon Prime Video.
