Everyone seems eager to ride on the Christopher Nolan gravy train nowadays, with the edgy The Dark Knight-inspired take on the Man of Steel to this year's sci-fi flick Transcendence, directed by first timer Wally Pfister. The man has been involved with some of the best movies in recent times, as he served as cinematographer in all of Christopher Nolan's works since Memento. On his directional debut, he'll be tackling some Inception-ish concept involving complicated human AI and a less than convincing romance.

The story starts off with happy couple Will and Evelyn Caster, who strive to create sentinent computers (in less heavier terms it's basically artificial intelligence). When an anti-tech (?) terrorist group attempts an assassination on Will that leaves him dying, Evelyn could not part with her lover and made the bold decision to upload Will's dying consciousness onto the very AI they developed. Soon an online and self-aware computer Will, who has been developing itself by leaps and bounds, starts taking over everything. Evelyn, as happy as she may be, starts to ponder whether the virtual being is really her lover, or a computer with a humanoid veil.

Sounds like an amazing story doesn't it? Sadly, the execution is poor in the sense that, while the movie is pretty lengthy at a full two hours, it gives the viewers the feeling that nothing much has been going on throughout. One working element in a good sci-fi flick like Aliens and Inception is that it surprises people and gives them a sense of awe and disbelief. While Transcendence does offer few jaw-dropping moments, it lacks in offering as many genuine surprises as it suffers from a rather predictable plot. 

The pacing of the movie is also all over the place, from a very slow opening of Will's last days, to a time jump that brings the movie forward by two whole years without detailing anything that happened in between, especially among the brief yet important supporting characters. One good point to take from this movie is the amazing special effects, especially those at the solar panel field, considering Pfister is an Academy Award-winning cinematographer for his work on Inception (won) and the Batman series (nominated).

The cast list for this is as star-studded as it is excessive. Here, Johnny Depp, who plays the AI program, and Rebecca Hall (also known as discount Scarlett Johansson and that chick from Iron Man 3) compromise the two main cast of the movie. However, there is the lack of chemistry between Depp and Hall as a pair of supposedly loving partners, and a strong chemistry between them is important in driving this particular story forward. (Sidenote: Johnny Depp hasn't been in a hit movie for a while now). 

Both Depp and Hall hog up most of the screen time, while the supporting cast that houses a host of heavy hitters offer few in between, which boils down to the bad pacing and the surplus of characters introduced. Paul Bettany, who also supplies JARVIS' Brit voice in the Iron Man series, plays the biggest third-wheeler in movie history as Wally and Evelyn's best friend Max, but he was reduced to a fading supporting act towards the second half of the movie (after the time jump). The premise of Max going against his friends' decision to upload Will's consciousness online could have made Bettany's character one of the movie's stand-outs.

The same could be said of Kate Mara (due to play Susan Storm in next year's Fantastic Four reboot), who plays the head of the terrorist group and sadly does not offer much other than to advance the plot. Both Bettany and Mara, as important as their characters might seem, are given very little to do, and worse off are Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy, two stalwarts of the Nolan flicks, whose talents are wasted here as they only make brief appearances throughout. Heck, even Clifton Collins, last seen sporting a fancy bow tie in Pacific Rim, gets as much screen time as them.

If you've noticed, I've been comparing Transcendence a lot with Inception, one of the best movie in recent memory. Though this comparison is rather harsh and unjust, the tone and story present in this movie was what Transcendence was hoping to replicate. As ambitious the movie was, one could feel that the concept from Transcendence could have been a winning formula had it been under the hands of someone else (*cough* Nolan *cough*). This isn't undermining Wally Pfister's ability as a director, as the man showed great promise even on his first hand at directing, thought he might have felt hard done by poor storytelling and an overdose of characters. If viewed as a movie on its own, it's actually a pretty okay flick, but it's no Inception (oops).