Transcendence
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: April 17, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 45 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
27
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperApr 17, 2014
Transcendence is a bold, beautiful, sometimes confounding flight of futuristic speculation firmly rooted in the potential of today’s technology. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranApr 17, 2014
An ambitious and provocative piece of work that is intriguingly balanced between being a warning and a celebration. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisApr 17, 2014
Transcendence is a dark, lurchingly entertaining pastiche of age-old worries, future-shock jolts, hot-button topics and old-fashioned genre thrills. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 18, 2014
Moderately entertaining, periodically draggy, Transcendence is not as wacky-visionary as “The Matrix,” or nearly as lyrical as “Her.” Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnApr 16, 2014
While never as dynamically involving as Christopher Nolan's "Inception," for which longtime Nolan director of photography Pfister justifiably won an Oscar, Transcendence still grapples with provocative existential concepts in similarly thoughtful terms. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaApr 18, 2014
Echoing the lessons learned from "HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey," the message of Transcendence is that computers should not be allowed to become sentient. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyApr 18, 2014
Apart from Mychael Danna’s portentous orchestral and electronic score, Transcendence simply lacks oomph: Shots don’t overwhelm, scenes don’t pop and nothing on the screen gets under your skin. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzApr 17, 2014
The most galling thing about Transcendence, though, isn't its inability to get a handle on what, if anything, it wants to say about the enormous changes happening to the human race, it's the movie's ending, which seems calculated to reassure us that everything's going to be fine as long as the right people are in charge, especially if they're good looking. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierApr 16, 2014
A movie that’s of two minds. It’s well-grounded, but also over the top. It’s a man-vs.-machine epic and also an intimate drama. It’s quirky-smart yet sci-fi silly. And it winds up being half as good as it could be. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc MohanApr 17, 2014
A thoroughly mundane experience. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid DenbyApr 27, 2014
Transcendence is a muddle; it takes more creative energy than this to catch up to the present. [28 April 2014, p.86]
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubApr 18, 2014
Transcendence looks and sounds like a Christopher Nolan film that got attacked by malware. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriApr 18, 2014
Transcendence never quite succeeds at telling a story of scientific overreach. And it doesn’t really click as an action movie either. But as a human tragedy of man and monster, of beauty and beast, it has just enough genuine pathos that you wish it were better. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyApr 18, 2014
Watching it all unfold and slowly go off the rails, you can't help but wonder what Pfister's mentor, Nolan, might have done with the same material. My guess is he would have sent the script back for a Page One rewrite for starters. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 17, 2014
Science fiction has an obligation to seduce the viewer into applying the "willing suspension of disbelief." With its plot holes and head-scratching incongruities, Transcendence fails in this arena thereby making the production as a whole feel bloated and unsatisfying. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 17, 2014
The story soon devolves into a far-fetched, futuristic snooze-fest that often defies its own logic. Characters' motivations are rarely clear, and allegiances shift with no explanation. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrApr 17, 2014
There’s a lot of intelligence in Transcendence. Ironically, almost all of it feels artificial. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 17, 2014
An ambitious movie, but ultimately there’s too much “artificial” and not enough “intelligence.” Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallApr 17, 2014
Transcendence is a movie without villains, thrills or, after Nolan fanboys show up, much of an audience. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsApr 17, 2014
After an intriguing start, Transcendence — aka "The Computer Wore Johnny Depp's Tennis Shoes" — offers roughly the same level of excitement as listening to hold music during a call to tech support. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissApr 17, 2014
Clever ideas early on go rogue, or go missing, in the gallop toward an action-film climax that then, perversely, doesn’t materialize. The movie’s intelligence is artificial, its affect solemn. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 16, 2014
Despite its looks, talent and pedigree, Transcendence never becomes the movie it could have been. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyApr 16, 2014
Pfister, who, like his mentor Nolan, adamantly continues to shoot on film (not digital), shows a sure hand at staging scenes, creating visuals and setting a tone -- if only all the diverse elements here fit comfortably under the same tent. Read full review
42
Film.comKate ErblandApr 17, 2014
Unquestionably the work of both a newbie director and a green screenwriter. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Apr 16, 2014
This humorless science-fiction cautionary tale feels like a relic from an earlier era, pulled out of a dusty old box of zip disks and 56k modems. Read full review
42
HitfixDrew McWeenyApr 16, 2014
Wally Pfister, best known until now as the cinematographer on Christopher Nolan's big films, makes his directorial debut here, and as dumb as Paglen's script is, Pfister seems to have no feeling whatsoever for the staging of sequences or for any sort of dramatic narrative momentum. Read full review
40
CineVueAmon WarmannApr 24, 2014
While the core concepts of Transcendence and the questions they pose are inherently interesting, the manner in which the themes are explored feels extremely superficial. Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensApr 17, 2014
Transcendence is nowhere near as elegant, witty, or insightful as "Her." Pfister and the screenwriter, Jack Paglen, grapple ponderously, sometimes oafishly, with the ethical and philosophical issues at stake in the film’s premise. Read full review
40
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekApr 17, 2014
Transcendence, written by Jack Paglen, is just more business as usual, one of those "control technology or it will control you" sermons that nonetheless enlists the usual heap of technically advanced special effects. Read full review
40
The DissolveScott TobiasApr 17, 2014
Transcendence wants to use this future panic to comment meaningfully on our current interconnectedness and inorganic lifestyle, but it’s screaming too much to have that conversation. Read full review
40
The GuardianTom ShoneApr 17, 2014
Transcendence suffers from terrible timing, arriving a few months after Spike Jonze charmed audiences with his semi-futuristic love story "Her," which flipped a century’s worth of technophobia on its back. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesApr 16, 2014
A bright idea, disappointingly dulled in the execution. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfApr 16, 2014
While Transcendence has tons of money to spend on unpersuasive digital effects and dronelike music, it shows little interest in exploring the potentially tricky benefits of a computer-enhanced intellect; it’s not even in the enjoyable realm of starkly ridiculous Cold War thrillers like "Colossus: The Forbin" Project. Read full review
40
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeApr 16, 2014
You can feel this movie's attempts at Big Ideas about technology get weighed down by a dopey, nonsensical plot. Read full review
40
VarietyScott FoundasApr 16, 2014
There are intriguing, half-formed ideas afoot in Transcendence, but the script and Pfister’s heavy, humorless direction tend to reduce everything to simplistic standoffs between good and evil. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEric HendersonApr 17, 2014
If you programmed an algorithm to figure out how The Lawnmower Man might be retold by Snake Plissken at the conclusion of Escape from L.A., you'd still wind up with a more recognizably human effort. Read full review
38
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreApr 16, 2014
This thoughtful but windy and winded sci-fi thriller shortchanges the science – understandably - and the thrills. The directing debut of “Dark Knight” cinematographer Wally Pfister is a mopey affair with indifferent performances, heartless romance and dull action. It transcends nothing. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanApr 17, 2014
The real trouble with Transcendence is that it just isn’t all that scary — at least not in the way that it wants to be. Read full review
33
The PlaylistCharlie SchmidlinApr 16, 2014
Jack Paglen’s script casts artificial intelligence and its dangers as the central trouble for its ensemble cast, but Pfister chooses to explore it in essentially a two-hour “getting ready” montage. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversApr 24, 2014
All I can cull is: don't mess with Mother Nature and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Fortune-cookie stuff. Erase All. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezApr 17, 2014
Transcendence is "Her" for dummies. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickApr 16, 2014
Lethargic direction, bland visuals, credulity-straining plotting and tin-eared dialogue turn even pros like Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany and Morgan Freeman into sleepwalking bores. Read full review
25
ObserverRex ReedApr 16, 2014
A pointless nightmare of pretentious science fiction twaddle with no plot, no coherence and no heart. Read full review
20
The TelegraphTim RobeyApr 24, 2014
Transcendence is the worst, most portentous, and certainly the silliest big-budget science fiction film since the 2008 Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 17, 2014
Ambitious to a fault, this cautionary fantasy about artificial intelligence has so much on its muddled mind, and so little sense of dramatic grounding, that it grows ever more preposterous before lurching to a climax that's utterly unfathomable. Read full review
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