Description
Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club) star in this compelling drama filled with action, suspense and high-tech adventures! Featuring superb performances by Dabney Coleman and Barry Corbin, WarGames is “brilliant…funny…and provocative” (New York)a fast-paced cyber-thriller. Computer hacker David Lightman (Broderick) can bypass the most advanced security systems, break the most intricate secret codes and mastereven the most diff… More >>
December 1st, 2009 at 4:21 pm
this movie is best seen in sequence after slingblade, american psycho, kids in the hall, wag the dog, and lawnmower man. Not to be rude or anything, but I find this movie slightly erotic when the computer asks mathew if he wants to play a game. after you watch this, you need to really get the totally erotic euphoria of Bob Roberts and you got a really good movie marathon. Seriously though, if you have a blind date, rent this one and shell do anything you ask, even if she doesnt like you, I swear by this DVD as a date movie, it sets the mood just right. The performances and Brodericks beedy eyes make it a two thumbs up thriller that few other movies will come close to.
enjoy
Rating: 1 / 5
December 1st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
This movie is about a British operative named only “Joshua” who communicates with a high school student and his girlfriend over the internet. Security is compromised and Joshua forces the young couple into a deadly game of chess creating a lot of confusion for American military brass. The Soviet Union was somehow involved too but indirectly. This is where the movie lost me, hence the 2 stars.
Rating: 2 / 5
December 1st, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Fire up the steam powered Zenith, microwave some popcorn in the dryer, we’re on a mission to Unbelievability World.
Let’s review a few things before we go ripping into this turkey, shall we?
First, what kid in the early eighties had a computer? The set up he had for back then would have been leading edge college computer science lab equipment, but hey, some kids have a typewriter, and some kid’s parents can afford thousands of dollars worth of equipment like this. And, judging by the speed, it must have been Cray Supercomputer prototype-grade at that.
Also, computer languages were complicated anyway, but this kid just types what he thinks and the computer just answers. If it were that easy, we wouldn’t have Bill Gates, would we?
Computers used by the War Department weren’t and aren’t called stupid names like W.O.P.P.E.R., whatever it stands for, or any other fast food sounding name. (although, it would have made the movie more interesting if we’d heard lines like “Oh, my god, the C.H.A.L.U.P.A. is initiating a first strike scenario!”
Is it just me, or is Ally Sheedy just sort of someone for Matthew Broderick to talk to…like, is she supposed to be someone, she just doesn’t come off as a real teenager…too healthy, not bulemic enough to be a real girl.
Do all movie government computer systems have ‘back doors’ in their programming so that the G-3 employee they hired away from Nintendo to write the Mutual Assured Death programming for our nation’s nuclear missile system can get in it later and see if he can get past level 8?
Real computer systems just take orders…like ‘fire’ or ‘just sit there until I need you to fire’. I don’t think a computer system controlling the most deadly nuclear arsenal on Earth would ask anyone “would you like to play a game? Poker? Risk? Chutes and Ladders? Global Thermonuclear Hopscotch?”
And were that so, it only really does prove they got it because it was the lowest bid.
Rating: 4 / 5
December 1st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
This film came out just in time to exploit the world’s fear of hackers. To the computer literate, it is about as believable as the average slasher flick — unfortunately, there weren’t many folks who knew any better in the mid 1980’s. In fact, a Federal judge based his personal opinions regarding computers, modems, BBSes and the people who would own such devices on his having seen this movie.
It was entertaining, but check your brain at the door.
Rating: 2 / 5
December 1st, 2009 at 6:58 pm
This movie is highly dated, and it’s only slightly tolerable to watch. The setting is mid-Cold War, and everyone should be VERY afraid of the impending nuclear holocaust that Russia is just waiting to unleash. The intro shows a top secret missile bunker where normal, every-day workers have to go through a maze of security in order to man their posts at the missile control center. When the orders come to kill millions of people, will they launch? And the movie’s premise is set up; will human frailties get in the way of defending the country and torching the commies?
The WOPR computer is a data analysis computer that uses all available information to simulate WWIII and improve upon previous scenarios. It’s the method by which men are proposed to be taken out of the nuclear launching loop.
The beginning of computers was all about a single password, evidently. On top of that, it was a password as simple as `pencil’. There was no alpha-numeric security at this school, oh no. Ferris Bueller hasn’t quite hit puberty, but he already knows how to hack into a computer. And he doesn’t think he deserves an “F” in biology; therefore, the grades get changed. It’s the setup for a mischievous computer wunderkind who is about use his massive floppy disks to cause all sorts of chaos.
Using an old-school phone-connected modem, Ferris starts calling every number in the area codes that cover a game company’s domain. Somehow he’s able to do this, calling thousands of numbers without any interruption from anyone else using the phone, and he manages to find the game company for which he’s looking (among other systems like banks and airlines). What ensues is a search to get into the gaming computer.
Insert cheesy montage of Ferris looking up information in the library. It’s hot microfiche action! Dewey Decimal System in the house!
After hacking into the system, the computer scenes start to get ridiculous. The computer system not only replies with random questions, it interacts with what the user types. Not only that, but a home computer with less than 56K of RAM was able to take over a bunker full of massive mainframes that are controlling the entire nuclear capabilities of the United States. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Insert cheesy montage of computers. Scary LEDs!!! It’s a massive Lite-Bright game and it’s going to destroy the world! And not one of the morons who work at NORAD has enough common sense to see the game counting down and turn it off.
In the end, the world escapes tragedy as the computer learns that not all games can be won. All games do not have a definitive winner and loser. Some times, everyone loses and there is no clear-cut ending.
Rating: 3 / 5