This movie has budget of $70 million, according to Wikipedia. I'm absolutely convinced that Michael Mann and Morgan Davis Foehl used nearly all of the budget to buy drugs and get as high as humanly possible.
Because nothing else could explain the idiocy they wrote and filmed and tried to sell as a hacking-focused movie.
The story is absolutely ridiculous. Chris Hemsworth couldn't sell a master hacker no matter how much he tried. And he doesn't seem to be trying much... At least, they could buy a comb or hair wax to fix his constantly dangling strand of hair. Might as well cast The Rock to this role, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, it would perhaps be still more believable.
The movie is Michael-Mannishly dark at times and action is sometimes pretty gruesome, but feels too theatrical and unhinged. Like kids pointing sticks at each other and making machinegun sounds with their mouths. At least the cinematography is pretty good here and there, beautiful city shots and occasional explosion of style. Drugs do make you see world in pretty colors...
But the "hacking", well, at one point they trick NSA chief analyst (or some superior at least, it's unclear) to change their password while opening e-mail attachment with a keylogger payload. I think I threw up in my mouth at this scene. I'm sure the writer read that it's possible in a women's fashion magazine or something and thought it'll be realistic component in a hacker movie. It tells you exactly how much realism to expect. It's like a flight attendant opening a plane door to air the cabin mid-flight... It's that painfully dumb. That one thing that could never, ever happen. Rest of the hacking portion of this movie is easily as bad and you don't need to know anything about computer security to see how dumb it is (but if you do, it's even worse).
Well, if you dismiss "hacking" in movie called "Blackhat"(!!) and lackluster action scenes, well, there's basically nothing else left. Even the major conspiracy makes zero sense, hacker with ability to directly crash stock markets is still on about industrial water pumps for some reason and causes a nuclear catastrophe just to test it... what the hell?
Well, at least I hope the drugs were good.
Because nothing else could explain the idiocy they wrote and filmed and tried to sell as a hacking-focused movie.
The story is absolutely ridiculous. Chris Hemsworth couldn't sell a master hacker no matter how much he tried. And he doesn't seem to be trying much... At least, they could buy a comb or hair wax to fix his constantly dangling strand of hair. Might as well cast The Rock to this role, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, it would perhaps be still more believable.
The movie is Michael-Mannishly dark at times and action is sometimes pretty gruesome, but feels too theatrical and unhinged. Like kids pointing sticks at each other and making machinegun sounds with their mouths. At least the cinematography is pretty good here and there, beautiful city shots and occasional explosion of style. Drugs do make you see world in pretty colors...
But the "hacking", well, at one point they trick NSA chief analyst (or some superior at least, it's unclear) to change their password while opening e-mail attachment with a keylogger payload. I think I threw up in my mouth at this scene. I'm sure the writer read that it's possible in a women's fashion magazine or something and thought it'll be realistic component in a hacker movie. It tells you exactly how much realism to expect. It's like a flight attendant opening a plane door to air the cabin mid-flight... It's that painfully dumb. That one thing that could never, ever happen. Rest of the hacking portion of this movie is easily as bad and you don't need to know anything about computer security to see how dumb it is (but if you do, it's even worse).
Well, if you dismiss "hacking" in movie called "Blackhat"(!!) and lackluster action scenes, well, there's basically nothing else left. Even the major conspiracy makes zero sense, hacker with ability to directly crash stock markets is still on about industrial water pumps for some reason and causes a nuclear catastrophe just to test it... what the hell?
Well, at least I hope the drugs were good.