Johnny Depp Merges With The Machine In New 'Transcendence' Stills

It really says something about Johnny Depp's career that his role in Transcendence as a megalomaniacal digital god (or something) is the least weird he's looked in a while. The role doesn't require him to don gold teeth, or vampire fangs, or ten pounds of white makeup and a bird on his head. Instead, as director Wally Pfister puts it, Transcendence has him with "just a pair of glasses on and a pretty normal haircut."

But don't let that fool you: Transcendence sounds like a trip. The script, by Jack Paglen, centers on an AI researcher (Depp) who uploads his own consciousness into the computer when his life falls into danger. Rebecca HallMorgan Freeman, and Cillian Murphy also star, and you can see all of them in two new images after the jump.

And here's the out-there synopsis:

Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, working to create a sentient machine that combines the collective intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotions. His highly controversial experiments have made him famous, but they have also made him the prime target of anti-technology extremists who will do whatever it takes to stop him. However, in their attempt to destroy Will, they inadvertently become the catalyst for him to succeed—to be a participant in his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, the question is not if they can...but if they should. Their worst fears are realized as Will's thirst for knowledge evolves into a seemingly omnipresent quest for power, to what end is unknown. The only thing that is becoming terrifyingly clear is there may be no way to stop him.

Transcendence opens April 18, 2014.