Johnny Depp: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

2. Will Caster - Transcendence (2014)

With an intriguing high-concept, a talented cast including Depp, Morgan Freeman, and Rebecca Hall, and marking the first film from Chris Nolan's longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister, hopes were high for Transcendence being an original sci-fi hit.

It centred on a scientist hoping to achieve transcendence, a technological advancement that would create an ever-improving A.I. that would one day surpass human intelligence, but then has to upload his own consciousness when targeted by an anti-tech group.

Despite having some pretensions at tackling big ideas, the film never manages to live up to that notion, with leaps of logic and a failure to deliver any answers to the questions it tries to post. The cast maybe aren't the biggest failing here, but they do take some of the blame, and that certainly goes for Depp as the lead. Maybe it's fitting that for a man uploading his brain to a machine, he gives such a lifeless performance.