The balance between technical accuracy and what is accessible and entertaining to a mainstream audience is always a difficult tightrope to walk for filmmakers venturing into cutting-edge subjects, but the producers of 'Transcendence' seem to have achieved a substantial measure of each. For people who are just being exposed to the concepts, the film touches on all of the main ideas and provides enough baby food for the uninitiated to form a seed of understanding.
Because this film treads on a lot of touchy areas such as God and religion, creation, individuality and communalism, energy and environmentalism, and the fundamental question of what it means to be human, I see why the critical response has been polarized. I commend the filmmakers for venturing into this hotbed.
Production-wise, as a big-budget film, it was nearly flawless: great casting and acting, unobtrusive cinematography, beautiful score, a better-than-functional plot, and dialog that was credible yet smoothly expository while developing the characters and moving the story forward. Some of choices to inject action into the film were a little over-the-top: exploding food; the FBI using artillery (really?); and the AI entity using spectacular, physical tactics to defend itself instead of using more nonviolent, covert manipulation and psych-ops to achieve its goals. And the zombie-apocalypse feel to some of the scenes were really beneath this project, but that's Hollywood...
I was surprised to see Elon Musk do a cameo in this film. He's actually very cautionary toward the development of AI, and has warned about its dangers, but this film ultimately seems to take a position in favor of it. The casting of Rebecca Hall as Evelyn, the wife of the lead scientist, was a brilliant choice. She's perfect in the role, although the character is a little behind the times, portraying a more subservient female to the male lead. Johnny Depp handled the lead seemingly with ease, although the choice of using that ambiguous, polygenetic European accent as an American scientist was kind of weird and somewhat distracting.
The film was pretty equitable with regard to the racial composition of the cast. Morgan Feeman had a substantial supporting role and another black actor, Cory Hardrict, played one of the terrorists -- not too many black extras in the background though, that I could see. Freeman's character was juxtaposed with some negative scenes, however, such as a terrorist attack and on a couple of occasions he delivered sad messages and gestures of condolence. And he opposed the protagonists throughout most of the story. But he also had dialog that delivered some good news at one point, so overall I guess it was racially progressive given current Hollywood standards.
The film has taken quite a few hits critically with regard to its technical accuracy, but most of those criticisms are not deserved and have been made in ignorance. Maybe I'll do another separate review here someday with spoilers explaining why many of the events depicted in this film are actually very possible and credible.
Overall, it's a great film -- easily an 8/10, and with its racial diversity I'll give it a rating of 9/10.
Rating 9/10; (submitted July 31, 2020, 5:35 p.m. EDT)
Because this film treads on a lot of touchy areas such as God and religion, creation, individuality and communalism, energy and environmentalism, and the fundamental question of what it means to be human, I see why the critical response has been polarized. I commend the filmmakers for venturing into this hotbed.
Production-wise, as a big-budget film, it was nearly flawless: great casting and acting, unobtrusive cinematography, beautiful score, a better-than-functional plot, and dialog that was credible yet smoothly expository while developing the characters and moving the story forward. Some of choices to inject action into the film were a little over-the-top: exploding food; the FBI using artillery (really?); and the AI entity using spectacular, physical tactics to defend itself instead of using more nonviolent, covert manipulation and psych-ops to achieve its goals. And the zombie-apocalypse feel to some of the scenes were really beneath this project, but that's Hollywood...
I was surprised to see Elon Musk do a cameo in this film. He's actually very cautionary toward the development of AI, and has warned about its dangers, but this film ultimately seems to take a position in favor of it. The casting of Rebecca Hall as Evelyn, the wife of the lead scientist, was a brilliant choice. She's perfect in the role, although the character is a little behind the times, portraying a more subservient female to the male lead. Johnny Depp handled the lead seemingly with ease, although the choice of using that ambiguous, polygenetic European accent as an American scientist was kind of weird and somewhat distracting.
The film was pretty equitable with regard to the racial composition of the cast. Morgan Feeman had a substantial supporting role and another black actor, Cory Hardrict, played one of the terrorists -- not too many black extras in the background though, that I could see. Freeman's character was juxtaposed with some negative scenes, however, such as a terrorist attack and on a couple of occasions he delivered sad messages and gestures of condolence. And he opposed the protagonists throughout most of the story. But he also had dialog that delivered some good news at one point, so overall I guess it was racially progressive given current Hollywood standards.
The film has taken quite a few hits critically with regard to its technical accuracy, but most of those criticisms are not deserved and have been made in ignorance. Maybe I'll do another separate review here someday with spoilers explaining why many of the events depicted in this film are actually very possible and credible.
Overall, it's a great film -- easily an 8/10, and with its racial diversity I'll give it a rating of 9/10.
Rating 9/10; (submitted July 31, 2020, 5:35 p.m. EDT)
