My video binge-watching came to its inevitable destination: I watched a movie in which Johnny Depp is the least attractive person on the set. And that includes all the nerdy computer geeks, and guys in flannel shirts and hardhats that are so 2010. But he's also a dream husband, after he moves out of the house and into the computer. So as you can imagine, it all works out in the end.
The movie was Transcendence. If you haven't seen it, I'll sum it up by saying it's about Johnny Depp in glasses (therefore super smart) who figures out a way to capture his intelligence into a computer the size of the freezer cases at Costco, so when he's poisoned by anti-technology radicals, he can continue his research into how to develop artificial intelligence to take over the world. Like a live action Pinky and the Brain, in the episode where the Brain has an epiphanal realization that the only reason he wants to take over the world is so he can fund his research to take over the world.
Also starring in the movie are a younger, less strung out version of Mackenzie Phillips, who plays the wife; a more Aryan Joel McHale, who plays his best friend; and Morgan Freeman. Note: When he's not playing God or the president, Morgan Freeman isn't much help in a movie about the impending end of the world as we know it. Where's your ladder and mop now, Morgan Freeman?
As you can imagine, things get increasingly dicey for Artificial Johnny Depp and the gang, and there are some tense moments when the wife uploads her husband onto the Web and carries him around in her purse. There are some chase scenes involving well-meaning bad guys and the special effects are bonkers before everyone goes, oh, right, a robot can't love. Pay attention, youth. The End.
Any larger theme of how humanity is more than the sum of our intelligence was lost on me, though, because Johnny Depp seemed pretty human-like when he was a computer. In fact - and I hesitate to say this - once he got rid of the $10 haircut and dumpy suit, and once he got past the radiation poisoning by dying and becoming a giant computer screen, he got really hot. And he seemed to become a better person overall.
Talk about your good husbands. When he was just starting out as an AI, one of the first things he does is hack into Wall Street from his wife's iPad and make her a cool $38 million. And, even more impressive, he makes her a hotel reservation with no penalty for a late, last-minute check-in.
Then, still on a mobile device, he sends her directions to the house that he bought for her (Zillow, I'm guessing) and when she walks in, it's completely furnished with Ralph Lauren's Corral Canyon collection. The rest of us have to wait eight to 12 weeks to get a measly bar stool delivered that we have to then assemble ourselves, but this guy's wife gets her entire house furnished down to the coordinating throw pillows and brass Dakota plate chargers in the time it takes her to get across town in traffic.
Early on, when they're still on the run, AI Johnny Depp is able to get a blocked number from the phone company on the fly, and he must've gotten her on a wicked nice data plan, because you never see her waiting for anything. Meanwhile, it took me three weekends to get my husband to fix our router.
"I've accessed surveillance cameras all over the country," Johnny Depp says in his sultry, Donny Brasco voice. Really? My husband can't get our home security cameras to work without three different appointments in which I have to stay home for five-hour windows.
This chick was living every wife's dream. I mean, sure, it's annoying to have a husband who never sleeps or eats, but hovers over her, crooning, "What are you thinking? . . . Okay, what are you thinking now? Not to worry, close to the end of this movie, I'll be able to read your brain myself." She woke up from a bad dream one night and there he was, that big head on the wall, just staring at her. The man needed some hobbies, if you ask me. Without a lawn to cut or steaks to grill, and no appetite for a nice cocktail, he was going to start annoying her pretty fast.
But totally worth it, I'm guessing. Although, I can't be the only one who noticed that once he shed his nerdy scientist body and became a computer, he wore nicely pressed dress shirts in trendy colors, lost the glasses, and looked as worthy of the big screen as he did in The Tourist. Different big screen, but still.
With LASIK and Pinterest at his disposal, I wouldn't be surprised if he was all over Match.com.
