Hello our beloved blog-followers (or, I believe at this point, just our beloved co-workers)!

I’m thoroughly excited to embark on my virgin blog-voyage with a Joey’s review on one recently released sci-fi thriller that has received my personal grade-A stamp, a movie called Transcendence. I hope you will enjoy the next few minutes and, despite its incredible low score on most movie reviews, change your minds about sweeping this one under the rug.

The movie’s screenplay is by Jack Paglen, whose name has only been associated with productions such as Battlestar Galactica and The Last Hand Standing -I know, I haven’t got a clue what they are either. But the director? Yes, you may have heard, this is Wally Pfister’s directorial debut after snatching an Academy Award with 2010’s Inception for Best Cinematography. And let’s not forget, the film also features ‘daft’ career actors/actresses such as Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Cillian Murphy, Kate Mara, Col Hauser and… (are we done yet?! wait for it…) Morgan Freeman!

In short, Transcendence is a movie about a brilliant AI researcher whose consciousness was digitalized and uploaded to the world wide web. With unlimited resources, he is now capable of accessing miraculous scientific advancements and create nano-technologies that can quite literally penetrate every corner of the physical and virtual worlds. As a result of such unfathomable powers, he is consequently confronted by military factions, which orchestrate to topple his operation in fear of falling under its rule.

You may think you have already seen this concept being explored one too many times in pop-culture cinematic productions. But unlike any of it predecessors, Transcendence has quite literally transcended any existing debates on the conflicts of men vs. machines. Its post-viewing philosophy is anchored on the concept that if human consciousness, along with its human values, were suddenly granted God-like powers, how would he/she conduct himself/herself? And how would the world accept him/her?

Although Transcendence avoided, for the most part, discussions of theology and use of vocabulary such as ‘faith’, it repeatedly begs its audience to debate the concepts that “people have always created a God for themselves” yet “fear what we don’t understand”. As a student of theology and philosophy, I have been taught the rudimentary features of God generally comprises of: all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. The latter has always been the hardest to define. What is all-loving? That would require an immediate confrontation with the concept of ‘justice’, a concept as abstract as the main message of this movie. In the end, Transcendence is really asking us to ponder two questions without giving us any answers: 1.If a human mind were suddenly granted unlimited powers and knowledge, how quickly would that change its human values and recognitions of right and wrong? 2.If we were to witness something as powerful as an act of God, would we be able to accept it? or would our fear for its powers consequently lead to the need to orchestrate its destruction?

If you enjoy this type of philosophical discourse, I think Transcendence is your kind of movie. My suggestion is: find a friend who is equally intrigued by concepts of existentialism and theology, watch Transcendence over a nice bottle of wine, and debate away!

 

Images via HD Wallpaper, Transcendence and the Transcendence trailer.