I know why Johnny Depp was rightfully paid many millions of dollars to star in the new computers-gone-mad movie Transcendence: it’s because at one point Johnny is required to shave his head. When Johnny has to sacrifice his trademark floppy bangs, he seems more upset than when he’s diagnosed with a fatal case of radiation poisoning. For Johnny, his hipster hair, tortoiseshell eyeglass frames and bank teller vests are essential, because remember, we’re talking about a 50-year-old movie star who still wants to be called Johnny.
Transcendence follows the same route as all of those Frankenstein and Vincent Price movies, in which a gifted doctor or scientist crosses the line, and a horrified co-worker says something like, “There are some things which man was never meant to tamper with!” In this latest version, after Johnny’s death, his grieving widow manages to upload both his consciousness and his wardrobe into a mega-computer. This whole process is the result of Johnny’s TED-talk worthy tech brilliance. Whenever a star has to play a genius or even a pediatrician I always start to wonder: in real life, did Johnny even finish high school?
Once Johnny is permanently online, he starts to invent all sorts of revolutionary nano-ware, which can cure the sick, make flowers grow and create mind-controlled armies, using the itinerant poor folk of some godforsaken midwestern hellhole; Johnny’s plans are like a malevolent form of Obamacare. If I could crawl inside the internet, my thinking would be different. I’d do things like comparison browse for appliances, delete all mean comments about Anne Hathaway, and have thousands of unwanted pizzas delivered to Time-Warner executives.
As Johnny gets crazier, Rebecca Hall, as his devoted spouse, has to wander around his desert ultra-lab, wearing flats and classic tapered white shirts. She’s constantly surrounded by projected images of Johnny, as if she’s trapped in a fan’s website, or in some fiendish new Disneyworld pavilion devoted to all things Johnny. Rebecca eventually gets very distraught, but come on: wouldn’t an online husband be kind of ideal? It would be like being married to Google, or an even prissier version of Alex Trebek.
Johnny is great when he’s playing freaks like Willy Wonka or Sweeney Todd, but he’s had problems with more everyday characters, who have to do things like open doors and drive cars. In Transcendence Johnny seems smooth-skinned, pampered and lost, like a rich lady trying to locate her driver after a premiere. But at least Johnny’s underground lair is impressively spotless. Maybe Johnny’s character also created a digital cleaning lady, if you ask me.
