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 known with the full spectrum of human emotions. His controversial experiments have made him famous, but also the primary target of an anti-technology terrorist group, willing to do anything to stop him. In their attempt to destroy Will, the extremists inadvertently become the very force that propels him to success—to become part of his own transcendence. For his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) and best friend Max Waters (Paul Bettany), both fellow researchers, the question isn't whether they can go on... but whether they should.