Hackers (1995)

I remember watching Hackers on television and possibly on video when I was younger and being somewhat impressed. Not from the actual film itself, but from the fact that Hollywood would take the sidekicks of every other "action" film and give them their own film. It was refreshing, even if the overall feature did not settle well. It showed that Hollywood was willing to take a step forward in the world of creativity, and for a few films it brooded well. Now in 2005, I watch this film again, and am completely devastated by the results. Now, when I watch this film, I see clichéd characters, an uninvolved plot, complete disregard for the law, and extremely cheap computer graphics, which heavily stamped a date on this feature. Is this what hacking is all about? Is hacking about fighting evil hackers with virus', about growing out-dated over time, and about finding that one Goth girl that has a boyfriend and making her your own? That is what Hackers demonstrated to me, so why shouldn't I believe it?

Director Ian Softley really went outside of his tent when creating this film. Going from the feature Backbeat, about music's cultural icons, to this just doesn't … well … compute. He had this great opportunity to bring an unknown culture into a mainstream light, but instead he teeny-bopped it out of reality. He transforms these unsociable, outcast geniuses into superheroes, armed with nothing more than keyboards, high libidos, teen music, and an overabundance of clichés. If I were a member of the hacker community I would be outraged about this film. It is like making a movie about Superman wearing a Batman costume, two different cultures were intertwining incorrectly and nobody was there to stop it. We needed The Matrix, but all we got was American Pie. To help remedy this situation, we needed three distinct changes. We needed stronger actors to accompany their characters, a tighter story that dove deeper into the hacker culture, and we needed stronger CGI, which wouldn't date this early 90s film.

Jonny Lee Miller was decent, Angelina carried her own, Jesse Bradford was wasted, but overall the most hurtful part of these characters was that they never quite "gelled" together. I never quite saw these main characters working together after this. I never saw them remaining friends or pursuing their computer degrees further. We opened with only enough information for us to feel sympathy for Miller and literally left with no care in the world what would happen to these characters after the credit sequence. This is not strong film-making. I like to end films with a sensation that life outside the camera will continue in a linear course, but with Hackers that sensation never erupted. I think some of this has to do with Matthew Lillard who just floundered his performance (almost to the clichéd "T") and decayed nearly every scene he was involved with. The only attribute he was able to succeed with was annoying, and I don't think that is what Softley was shooting for. These characters were painful to watch and thankfully were able to rebound after this film, sans Matthew Lillard.

The story. Without detailing too much, the story was unoriginal. It felt as if we took a general action film, erased the main heroes, and instead substituted this band of hipster hackers as our heroines. Which means, a very clichéd story equipped with our very own over-acting villain, "The Plague". What was his role in this film outside of telling Penn Jillette what to do, and sleeping with Lorraine Bracco? His spoken words were hideous and painful to the ear, coupled with his one-dimensional character really left us with a villain that never quite covered the "evil" ground. Neither him nor Bracco felt "evil". Instead, from the moment we met them we knew what would be their fate. There was nothing that Softley could have done to avoid this … outside of making better casting decisions, a stronger story, and a decent climax.

Finally, I would like to say that this film felt like the mid-90s. No matter how you look at it, the choice for graphics in this film completely dates the picture. If you think you are going to gather up your computer friends for a rousing night of micro-brews and this feature, you will find yourself definitely alone by the end of the evening. Softley's use of random letters, images, and computer-enhanced something-or-others, didn't even feel like computers. I remember playing computer games back in the 80s that made more sense than this. I felt cheapened after seeing these terminally poor graphics and wondered if this film was used to push computer companies into a better era. Either way, Softley's CGI use in this film was hysterically bad, causing a ripple of cheapness to cascade through this film.

Overall, I wasn't happy with my future viewing of this film. Perhaps I should have left this film go in the 90s, but watching it today I felt cheap and robbed. Softley's inaccurate portrayal of this hacker culture only brewed a deeper dislike of Hollywood and their ability to capitalize on this unknown world. The cast was atrocious (Matthew Lillard), the story can be seen in dozens of other action-genre films, and the central focus of this film, the computer graphics, were apparently designed by Wal-Mart. Hackers is a disgraceful mess of a film that should be locked in the film vault never to be released again.

Found in my Halliwell's book, I originally watched this film on August 6th, 2005. I have no interest in watching this film again - as I remember, it has not stood up well against time. It has a yellow highlight with black mark - never to be watched again. Sorry, Nintendo Generation.