A young scientist is shot down in cold blood while his research team is on the verge of a breakthrough that may change our world forever. Dr. Will Caster, played by Johnny Depp, along with his wife Evelyn, played by Rebecca Hall, own and operate a supercomputer and science lab called PINN. These two, along with dozens of other research groups, all work in collaboration for the betterment of the human race, or so they think. While trying to develop stem cell breakthroughs and cures for cancer, these men and women often must draw a dividing line through a gray area between man and machine, humans and technology, love and science.
When Dr. Caster is skimmed with a bullet laced with radioactive material, these values are put to the test. The bullet was shot by a man who is part of a radical anti-technology group known as R.I.F.T., who supports the notion that technology is killing human interaction and everything good on planet Earth. In her husband’s dying days, Evelyn Caster is able to pool scientific research done on monkeys and apply it to her husband. Right before he dies, she uploads his consciousness onto the supercomputer and in some sense of the word “saves” her husband, at least his mental functions, while his body dies. As the movie continues, we discover that Evelyn’s love for her husband has no bounds as she decides, against the recommendations of other scientists, to upload her husband to the Internet to give him more power. Dr. Caster believes that, “Once online, a sentient machine will quickly overcome the limits of biology; in a short time, its analytic power will become greater than the collective intelligence of every person born in the history of the world.” Over the course of several years, Dr. Caster, with the power of the Internet in his hands, figuratively speaking of course, and begins to solve the problems of the human race. The problems of disease, pollution, and human mortality are solved.
At this point the scientific world has realized this has gone too far, but guns and bullets are no match for the properties and potential of an unrestricted human mind. Many wonder whether the real Dr. Caster is even alive in the supercomputer system or whether he has been truly lost. Joseph Tagger, played by the famous Morgan Freeman, asks Dr. Caster whether he can prove if he is self-aware. Dr. Caster answers Tagger with the same question.organism really be a human? Dr. Caster’s quest for power turns into an all out war that comes down to a decision to save his wife, or save himself from a computer virus created by the very scientists and colleagues who helped to build him up.
Although this movie has received mostly bad reviews, it was packed with a star-studded cast. Not only the above mentioned Freeman and Depp, the film starred Paul Bettany Cillian Murphy Kate Mara, Cole Hauser, Clifton Collins and Lukas Haas. I would not recommend seeing it unless you really like science-fiction or really want to get out of your house.
