Movie review: Transendence

Hello everybody!

I am back with another movie review. This time it is Transcendence – a film me and my aunt watched this week.

Summary: The movie follows the creation of the artificial intelligence. When one of the researchers of this project (Dr. Will Caster played by Johnny Depp) is shot with a radioactive bullet by gang of people who are fighting against new technologies, his wife (Evelyn Caster played by Rebecca Hall) and science partner (Max Waters played by Paul Bettany) decide to transfer his mind into an artificial intelligence. The thing they have created becomes so powerful, that it is threatening all of humanity. In the end, while believing that the thing they created is not actually Will – their friend and lover, they destroy it by uploading virus into the machine. However, I believe that they should have let it be, because he/it didn’t do anything bad, he/it just wanted to help people (treat blindness, cancer and other illnesses or injuries). The machine or the thing (whatever you want to call it), as it’s dying, explains to Evelyn that he truly is Will, saying he did what he did for her because saving the planet and helping people were her wishes. Still, we have to mention, that while helping them, he turned them into hybrids which were connected to him, so he might have been creating an army of followers. We will never know what his true intentions were.

The movie’s closing shot shows us that, while both Will and Evelyn died, their consciousness is still alive with the help of nano-particles. This means, that the world has one more chance of recreating the artificial intelligence. This also means that we may get a sequel.

Transcendence is directed by cinematographer Wally Pfister in his directorial debut. Because the director is cinematographer the movie is brilliantly shot and there are couple of scenes that are breathtaking.

The movie raised the question for me: Am I self-aware? How can we find an answer to this question? I know that I am aware of the situation I am in, I know who I am, where I am, who is surrounding me, but am I sure that everything I think I know is actually true.? What is more, would someone be so kind and explained to me what the difference between self-consciousness and self-awareness is?

I definitely recommend this movie for all sci-fi fans that love science and especially nanotechnologies. We know so little of them, so I am starting to believe that we can actually achieve things that were shown in this movie in the future. The only criticism I have is that I believe they could have wrapped everything up in a shorter period of time. Let us say in one and a half hour time instead of two hours. After the uploading of Will consciousness into the computer, the action really slows down and you are getting bored a little bit. However, the final scenes make up for the slow middle part. Rate 4.5/5

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCTen3-B8GU

  

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