With only a few months until Wally Pfister’s Transcendence hits theaters, it’s about time that the marketing campaign really started up. Yesterday, we saw the first official poster and today, we have a brand new trailer, providing a much more exciting look than the one that released in December.
While the first look at the film seemed to focus more on the scientific discovery aspect of the story, this one goes full-throttle into the action. Without rehashing too much footage, the trailer sets up the world quite nicely, giving us reason to care about all those involved. We also get a taste of Will’s first moments of transcendence, showing the transformation all the way until he turns into something that must be stopped.
The second half of the trailer is an adrenaline-pumping blast of all the damage that this computer/man/AI is capable of. It was a fairly safe assumption that there would be a good amount of action in Transcendence, especially considering what Pfister has worked on previously, but if this preview is any indication, it’s going to be way more of a thrill ride than I expected.
That being said, it’s the human aspect of the story that’ll set it apart from the array of mindless action films out there. From what we see here, Paul Bettany really stands out. I expect his character, Max Waters, will be the most interesting one, as he’s close enough to the situation to feel the pain of losing Will, but emotionally removed enough to realize the danger they’re putting everyone in. It’s his struggle that I’m really excited to see, and Bettany is spot-on in the footage that’s on display.
Also starring Rebecca Hall, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Clifton Collins, Jr., and Morgan Freeman, Transcendence is set to hit theaters on April 18th, 2014.