Transcendence (2014)

"Johnny Depp is a brilliant scientist who uploads his conscience to the internet and becomes all-powerful" is a winning science fiction film pitch but the resulting movie is less winning with the film opening a loooong time before Johnny Depp's brilliant scientist uploads his conscience to the internet, so there's a hohum wait for audiences as the pitch is set-up and then, too soon after things start to get interesting, the movie moves into its third act when the all-powerful A.I. is suddenly not so all-powerful, allowing an awkward hurry-let's-find-a-way-to-end-this conclusion.

★★★☆☆

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The Gift (2015)

This slow burn psychological thriller about two men linked by a secret past threatens to derail on two or three occasions - into melodrama, into bad taste, into meaninglessness - but the ultimate gift of The Gift, written and directed by Australian wonder Joel Edgerton, is that it always knows exactly what it is doing, in the end delivering a profound reckoning for a deeply flawed bad guy.

★★★★☆

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