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Grade • C
DVD • Johnny Depp in "Transcendence" calls to mind the time Peter Sellers appeared on "The Muppet Show," when Kermit told the actor he could "be yourself" and Sellers replied that "there is no me. There was a me once, but I had it surgically removed."
Depp, so good at unleashing his puckish humor from behind masks like Capt. Jack Sparrow or Willy Wonka, is lost here playing a regular guy, computer genius Will Caster — who is poisoned by anti-tech terrorists, but before he dies, he and his wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), upload his consciousness into a supercomputer, with world-altering results. First-time director Wally Pfister delivers some arresting images, as you would expect from the cinematographer of "Inception."
But with a somnolent Depp and rookie writer Jack Paglen's heavy-handed script, there's no soul in this machine. —
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