Blackhat Movie Review
Blackhat Movie Review Metadata
Cyber crimes are on a sharp incline over the last few years. And with that notoriety the commonplace criminal has evolved into a new threat called a black hat hacker, that many law enforcement agencies aren’t equipped to battle.
Blackhat stars Chris Hemsworth as Nicholas Hathaway, a cyber criminal himself, who is currently serving time in prison. Due to several high level computer related crimes, Hathaway has an opportunity to be released from prison to help both the Americans and Chinese in apprehending a cyber terrorist. Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) is the officer tasked by the Chinese delegation to lead the investigation. He is also the one who negotiates Hathaway’s release to assist in the investigation. Wang also brings in his sister, Lien Chen (Wei Tang) to support Hathaway, as she also has a computer background. Assisting in the field are two American agents played by Viola Davis and Holt McCallany.
The problem with Blackhat is that it too easily takes the road often traveled, whereas predictability is quite high throughout. In addition to that, all of the expected cliches are present. There’s no need to go into detail because it will be fairly evident if the decision is made to invest two hours and fifteen minutes into watching this.
The technical details, from a computer standpoint, will likely go over many people’s heads. Unfortunately, those that truly “get it” will also take issue, because some of the things aren’t feasible, much less believable. The visual representation of hacking gets old pretty quick.
While Blackhat has some redeeming factors, the pace in conjunction with the runtime leaves much to be desired. Director Michael Mann usually has a better feel with how his movies should flow, but lately that doesn’t seem to be the case (Public Enemies being recent example of that). If looking at Chris Hemsworth is one of the top reasons to see this, then by all means enjoy yourself, otherwise just wait to see it at home or at a matinee as it is not worth the price of a full admission ticket.
Comments
Thankfully, It was Free popcorn night at the Emagine. or I would of fell asleep at a couple of no dialogue parts in the movie.