The Hype: The directorial debut of Christopher Nolan's trusted cinematographer, Wally Pfister, a mind-bending sci-fi with a ridiculously good cast including Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy and Morgan Freeman. What more do you need to know? The Reality: Oh, how shocked we all were when the movie was barely pre-screened for critics and opened to a 19% Rotten Tomatoes rating, as well as being a colossal $100 million box office bomb. Given the enormous potential of the movie's transhuman premise, the stupid-good cast, and the promise of a stylist like Pfister going out on his own, no film has been as disappointing this summer and perhaps all year as Transcendence, an ambitious but thoroughly daft sci-fi flick that's more annoying than entertaining. Though it begins well, the problems quickly began to stack up, largely because the movie never sets up a convincing internal logic that audiences can set their watches by: as a result, the continual revelations don't so much astound as confuse, and the movie's comprehension of how technology, specifically the Internet, works is clearly way off the mark. It looks great and the performances are fine, but it's too sentimental and the characters are too stupid. What about you? Which movies really let you down this summer? Let us know in the comments!
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
