Prediction: Transcendence

Shiri’s Prediction:  Erm.  Well.  I’m not completely sure how a bullet passing through one’s body would give them fatal radiation poisoning but we’ll leave the medicine where it is, shall we.

There’s must be a completely rational and made up explanation *blink blink… blinkblinkblink*.  The premise certainly isn’t new, which means movie could only pull itself off it were very, very well acted and overwrought wifey sort of eclipses any Johnny Depp/Paul Bettany goodness because even in the 2 minute trailer it made me want to slap her and scream, “get a hold of yourself!” (the character, not the actress.

I’m sure the actress is a very nice person).  The “I did it all for love and it seemed like a good idea at the time/accomplice grows a conscience” trope/duality is getting to be a bit much and I think we’re all well and truly sick of terrorist cells.  Also, the moralistic, anti-tech drek that seems to be pouring out of the pores of thirty-something’s everywhere?  Please.  Get off your android horse.  Yes, technology is out to get us.  Yes, the robots will probably take over someday (have you seen those satellite controlled greyhound bots?  Skynet anyone?)  Your cell phone is giving you radiation poisoning, Google is stalking your buying habits, and the frozen yogurt robot at the science museum is one day going to play a happy tune while it dances on your splintered skull and pours M&Ms into your rictus of a pie hole.  Are you going to stop using any of the previous or any of your other toys?  Probably not.  Are you going to stop shopping on line?  Unlikely.  Are you going to give up your Kindle and go back to carrying a three hundred pound backpack of books on vacation?  Not bloody likely.  So hush and let the Cloud sing you softly to sleep while it devours your neurons.  At least you won’t have to watch this movie.

Luke’s Prediction: There exists somewhere in an alternate universe (maybe earth-2 or universe-616) a movie with the same premise, but instead of being a reactionary, conservative piece of claptrap that this appears to be, is an exploration of the ideas of what makes us human and what happens as that lines moves and shifts. Sort of a companion piece to the ideas of Her (technology as intelligent) and the “Be Right Back” episode of Black Mirror (building intelligence based on our impact on technology), this could have been an exploration of Jonny Depp’s transition from human through the “singularity” into the questions that lie beyond, is he still himself and is he conscious of it? What does conscious mean for a computer? And what does it really mean to be us?

Instead, we get a terrorist plot wrapped around a Frankenstein’s monster story, with a romance thrown in. Bah, this could have been interesting and instead we get yet another bad action film using enough science fiction to justify a bucket of special effects we have seen before. On the subject of special effects, go watch Gattaca again (an amazingly under-rated film), the end sequence is perfect. The special effects of going into space is some people sitting in chairs watching the stars go by, the whole movie builds to that moment and you feel that moment without needed a single effect. Forget about special effects, the only effects you need are a great story that gets people to feel something about the characters.