Highfaluting stuff

MOVIES that purport to take a serious peek into the future are unburdened by real-world constraints - like having to make sense - but even when logic is suspended there is a responsibility to entertain. Transcendence, a sci-fi thriller that takes the high road in the debate on humanity versus technology, fails miserably on both counts.

The film's vision of the apocalypse, brought about by the collapse of the Internet, is triggered when a brilliant scientist's attempt to heal the world and build a better future goes horribly wrong. The idea of a super-intelligent machine capable of human-like emotions was tackled most recently - and to much better effect - in Spike Jonze's Her while Transcendence, directed by Wally Pfister and written by Jack Paglen, is simply unable to stir much in the way of an emotional response.

This is one of those movies with Big Ideas but its ambitions are hampered by poor pacing, an untidy script and a narrative thread that is far too flimsy at best - there are more holes in it than Swiss cheese. A slew of A-listers do their best to energise proceedings but when Johnny Depp spends most of his screen time in two-dimensional form (speaking in monotone and looking out of a computer screen), even he is apt to lose something on the charisma front.