Movies From the Hat V #12 – Ryan’s Pick – Hackers (1995)

This is my 2961st Review

Thanks to Ryan of Ten Stars or Less for this recommendation.

Here are his thoughts on the film.

“There is no right and wrong. There’s only fun and boring. ” – The Plague

Number of Times Seen – 1 (19 Mar 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A talented high school student who was arrested years earlier for a major computer hack bands together with his hacker friends to stop a deadly computer virus from being unleashed.

My Take on it – This is a film that I’ve heard about for many years, but for some reason never got around to watching it.

The premise is actually quite good, but based on the technology and special effects used when this was made, it doesn’t seem as serious now as it probably did back then.

The fact that most of the people of the world are more familiar today with technology, the Internet and cyberspace in general actually makes this film seem too dated because when it came out, all of that was in its infancy and people didn’t know enough about it all.

That can’t be said for today and many of the aspects of this film don’t work well BECAUSE we are all so familiar with how things are.

There is definitely a strong 90’s aura here with the punk hacking motif and it actually looks comedic to see now instead of being able to take it seriously.

The acting is quite wooden here and many of the characters are portrayed as being quite over-the-top which also takes away from being able to take the ideas presented here seriously.

Despite all of the above, the idea still is a great one and I’d be interested to see how such an idea could be rebooted or remade now knowing as much as we all do about the world of computers.

Bottom Line – Great premise that doesn’t work as well now as it probably did 22 years ago.  The advances in technology and the familiarity that everyone now has with computers works to this film’s detriment.  The “punk” hacking motif looks quite juvenile now also.  The acting is pretty wooden and very over the top yet the idea is still a very good one that unfortunately wasn’t used to it’s full potential.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Around the movie’s release, the official website was modified by its webmasters to appear that it had been “hacked into,” and digital graffiti and instructions to “see ‘The Net’ instead” was added to the site’s graphics. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

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