We’ve known this was coming for, oh, a day or so. Not the endless march of technology or the slow replacement of mankind by the machines we once built to serve us, the new trailer for Wally Pfister’s Transcendence, which plugs that theme into a techno-thriller starring Johnny Depp. The promo is available over at Apple.
Depp stars as Dr. Will Caster, a computer scientist deep into researching the singularity, the point at which artificial intelligence overtakes human and the two begin to merge. His intent is to create a machine that can channel real human emotions, thereby making it the most powerful computational device ever known.
Will's highly controversial experiments make him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists, including a group called R.I.F.T. (Revolutionary Independence From Technology), who will do whatever it takes to stop him. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed, to be a participant in his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, the question is not if they can, but whether they even should. Well, if they didn’t, the film would probably be much shorter, so let’s go ahead and assume, shall we?
We’re definitely ready to see what Pfister has wrangled for his directorial debut and Transcendence, which also includes Kate Mara, Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy, will arrive on our screens on April 25.