Matthew Broderick, a brilliant hacker, is a schoolboy. Accidentally, he hacked into the computer network of the US military. Not knowing it's such a cool computer, and thinking it's some kind of sysadmin's computer, he finds the game folder there and runs a game simulating World War III. This is not really a game.
And since Broderick also picked up his nickname as Sovet Russia, the Pentagon is confident that the Rush Council is preparing a nuclear strike.
But the hacker corrected his joint and even gave him a classmate. Interestingly, the situation in the film was repeated in the same year in life, when a Soviet computer mistook a solar-powered flare for launching rockets. Ronald Reagan, after watching this film, somewhat cooled the fervor about his Star Wars program. Plus, in the movie, the situation is well shown that a nuclear strike on the USSR (or vice versa) will not lead to anything good.
Otherwise, the cinema has three problems: 1) is a boring nut job 2, it was in the more adult and dark 1970 film Colossus: Forbin Project 3, the authors had a bad idea of computer work and hacking. So this is a standard problem in 80s movies where there are computers. Normally, in the minds of the authors, this computer looks like — we cram into the computer the task of "create a time machine" or "perpetual motion machine" "cure for cancer" and the computer immediately gives a solution.
Nowadays, no one will be surprised by movies and TV series about hackers. No one will be surprised by artificial intelligence. But in 1983, these two subjects were quite interesting to viewers. And now on the screens came a very original film “War games”. The first major role of Matthew Broderick, paving the way for him in a big movie.
Young talented hacker Dave mainly spends his time playing computer games in machines, and also covers up his failure, hacking into the school server and correcting grades. But one day he decides to play a special game, not even suspecting that everything is real in it, and the consequences will not take long to wait.
The movie, to be honest, isn't good. Even for '83, it's too simple and boring. Of course, there was tension with fiction that year, but not entirely empty. I have no idea who was interested in watching War Games, while the sixth episode of Star Wars and the continuation of the adventures of Superman came out. The plot may be original (for those years), but monotonous and predictable. There was an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, but I don’t know why the film deserved this nomination. The bundle, in principle, catches, but it does not go further. No plot twists, no cunning directorial tricks. Nothing at all. A blanket.
As I said, the beginning is very intriguing. Acquaintance with the main characters, their hobbies and life. Next, the film begins to slowly accelerate, but it is still not really clear where everything is going. The main action begins only at the end of the first half hour, and here the main storyline begins to gradually sag. By the middle of "War Games" is already frankly boring to watch. It all boils down to empty, endless dialogues. The screenwriter, trying to somehow dilute the narrative, tries to introduce a secondary story, but even then bypass. It also fades quickly, and generally leaves the viewer puzzled - what was it and why? Not at all appropriate. The finale is a separate topic. I haven't seen a weirder ending in a long time. Unpredictable - yes, that's a plus. And it seems that everything is logical, yet some morality managed to squeeze. But it’s not the ending I was expecting to see. It looks like it’s from a different movie.
Compared to the other sci-fi I’ve seen, War Games boasts (or vice versa) a complete lack of action. I know it’s not Star Wars, it’s more of an intellectual movie, but I didn’t expect it to be so boring. It's too much for an intellectual film.
Most of the cast is unknown to me. Except that Matthew Broderick and Ellie Sheedy, still occasionally flashing in small roles. Broderick played for four with a minus, still affects the lack of experience. The rest of us do not evaluate, because there is nothing to compare. I’m not familiar with his other films.
The movie didn't come to me. Too fresh, monotonous and boring. About 60 to 70 percent of screen time takes place in one location. Long, drawn-out dialogue. It's a straight story. Interesting to see one of the first roles of Matthew Broderick. And, perhaps, the idea in itself is not bad. But the implementation, as for me, was not very good. In 2008, the sequel came out, but I have no desire to watch it.
3 out of 10
At the dawn of the Internet, a curious film was released that mixed the military, atomic war, hackers and video games into one pile. In Ernest Kline’s book Ready Player One, the film played a role. In addition, just a couple of days ago, the creator of the video game Her Story Sam Barlow announced a new interactive thriller called #WarGames (yes, with a hashtag in the title), in which we will watch through the peephole of the webcam for a girl-hacker Kelly. There are two reasons to remember the original 1983 movie, right?
The film opens with an extremely routine scene in which two workers replace the other couple in a secret and secure bunker. However, after a couple of minutes, the routine disappears and its place is taken by a serious tension in which the employee hesitates to turn the key to launching a nuclear missile, realizing how many lives will be destroyed after this action. Unfortunately, the rest of the film can not boast of this tension.
The opening scene becomes the starting point for the initiative to replace the hesitant launcher operators with an uncompromising computing machine that will not face moral dilemmas after receiving a launch command. At this time, the young guy David without a conscience cuts into slot machines and is desperately late for class. He's not afraid of bad grades, because there's a computer waiting for him at home that can connect to the school terminal and change his grades. After seeing a magazine advertisement for a new video game computer, David decides to scan a wide range of phone numbers to find one. Suddenly, he stumbles upon a computer that is more secure than usual, but at the same time has no problem providing him with a whole list of available games. At this point, David does not yet know that he communicates with a military computer, and Global Thermonuclear War is not a game, but a simulation capable of launching real nuclear missiles!
In the plot plan, the picture is constantly balancing between fiction and reality. Primitive by today’s standards, technology is far from what we call the Internet today, but dial-up techniques and clumsy five-inch floppy disks are perfectly nostalgic. Severe men in military uniforms stare bewildered at the box blinking light bulbs in an attempt to understand how it works. And a young man with a burning eye becomes almost the savior of humanity before the threat of nuclear war.
In parallel with this, the story of the relationship between David and the girl Jennifer, who most of the time tries to behave well and play sports. But their story arc is taped and about to fall off. Any chemistry that skips through insignificant glances breaks into simple dialogues and finally fades away in the face of impending danger.
Initially, the film was directed by Martin Brest, but it was quickly replaced by John Badham (" Short Circuit, Surveillance) at the very beginning of the shooting process. Such an emergency replacement affected the result, because Badam had to work with what had already been prepared - inexperienced actors teenagers and not the most convincing scenario. Nevertheless, the output turned out a pleasant thriller, which managed to keep the viewer in suspense due to racing against time.
For Matthew Broderick ("Valor, The Lion King), who played David, it was the second film of his career. His naively twitchy behavior, diluted with the daring character, creates a convincing version of the teenager on the screen, who, although delved into reading technical literature, does not forget how to have fun.
Ellie Sheedy ("Short Circuit), who played Jennifer at that time was a more experienced actress, but most of the roles were reduced to television series. The image of a romantic girl, who suddenly liked a bullying boy, sitting trifles in arcade machines, turned out quite well.
In addition to the two main young actors, it is worth noting the participation of Michael Madsen, who played one of those shifters at the beginning of the film and was no longer involved. The rest of the adult composition acts here as burnt idiots, which can be done by a high school student who knows from which side the floppy disk is inserted into the drive!
Although the film looks desperately outdated, for the viewer it becomes a natural time capsule, giving a convincing slice of the era. War Games is without exaggeration one of the best films illustrating not only the paranoia of the Cold War, but the process of introducing computer technology into all spheres of life even before it became mainstream.
The intimidating concept of allowing computers to solve important problems is much more relevant now than it was 34 years ago. Viruses and computer worms are now capable of doing far more harm on a larger scale than a hacker who calls phone numbers one by one. This May incident with the computer worm WannaCry caused serious hype. In 1983, the script was based on the assumption that such events were impossible. Today, a huge number of life support and control systems are controlled by a computer and associated sensors. Computer literacy and safe use of the Internet are not the lot of geeks, but a mass phenomenon.
The film had a significant impact on popular culture and popularized the concept of DEFCON. Five levels of proximity to launching nuclear missiles (from the fifth neutral to the first, meaning direct launch of missiles) became commonplace, and then so called the hacker conference. In 1983, in the Cold War atmosphere, the idea that nuclear war should not be started at all was conveyed by any means, including with the help of such a naive film.
In 2006, the game DEFCON was released, in which the player was required to choose a country and prepare to launch nuclear missiles in order to eventually cause maximum damage. As in the film, any match started ends in defeat and the slogan of the game “Everybody dies” conveyed this concept as easily as possible. Visually, the game was made deliberately primitive and schematic and largely borrows a global map from the film.
Little is known about the upcoming #WarGames game, but creator Sam Barlow is set to re-examine the questions raised in the film, but this time in a world where technology has fundamentally changed our lives. Isn’t this the best example of the movie?
"War Games" today looks a little fabulous and even funny, although the themes raised by the film are far from humor. 34 years ago, it was a chilling thriller about how machines can take people out of their jobs and then destroy them. Moral dilemmas like “we’re all human and we make mistakes” and “don’t trust too much of a soulless programmed hardware” seem relevant even now, although the level of computer literacy is different from what it was in the 80s. The film can be regarded as a rare time capsule, which combines the madness and romance of a bygone era, and a warning to future generations, the good that the relevance of the film is difficult to dispute.
7 out of 10
High school senior Dave accidentally sneaks into Petagon's server, thinking it's a computer game development company, and launches Global Thermonuclear War. Only fairly quickly it turned out that the local AI does not see the difference between reality and the game, and it can not be stopped in any way.
At a time when the Terminator was not filmed, the ghost of the Cold War roamed the planet, and the Internet in its usual form was not yet, the first film about a real hacker was released! Of course, this is fantastic and now looks incredibly naive. But at that time it was a relevant and very popular youth film, which gave a ticket to the unknown Matthew Broderick. Who later played in a number of iconic youth comedies and was included in the film gang Brat Pack. So is Ellie Sheedy (Breakfast Club, St. Elma Lights, Short Circuit). But she was not so lucky and at the turn of the 80s her career quietly stalled.
Let’s recall the early 80’s: just when Reagan came to power with his revolutionary policies, the Soviet Union was vociferous in Afghanistan and the production of neutron weapons began – all this provoked the last round of the Cold War. On the other hand, in the States for several years was the release of home personal computers. So the screenwriters Lasker and Parts naturally got into the stream, comprehending in their scenario not only the collision of newfangled technology with the human factor, but also the problem of AI self-awareness, and even mathematically voicing the win-win of any confrontation between nuclear superpowers. No wonder the guys have an Oscar nomination for him.
The film gave birth to two terms: DEFCON (an acronym for “defense readiness” and the name of the hacker conference) and wardialing (phone hacking). As you can see, the cultural impact was enormous.
Reached him in the framework of “Wait for the film on the First Player will be prepared” – in the book War Games is given a considerable role, it is interesting how Spielberg visualizes this moment So, despite the cool concept, the movie is that teenage adventures. A smart high schooler, thanks to the stupidity of adults, puts the world on the brink of destruction. Then, of course, he is saved with all his might, despite the stupidity and uncompromisingness of adults. If I had seen him in the early 90s, I would have died of happiness. And now I am in the camp of those same adults and this attitude is ambiguous.
WORDS: you will watch - check out floppy disks the size of a record before us such have not reached
I decided to watch this movie because, as a high school student, I was playing WarGames: Defcon 1 on PlayStation 1. I didn’t know English very well then, so after many, many years, I decided to find out who they were, and what they didn’t share. It turned out that the game belongs to the film insofar as, all these walking robots fighting in a game with people, in the film simply does not exist.
But let’s talk about the movie itself.
First of all, I still don’t know who this movie is for. Judging by the hell and sodomy that is happening in the frame (running in the style of the Benny Hill Show, deliberately stupid characters, the lack of the simplest logic of what is happening) – on children. And the kids are very stupid.
Any adult (unless, of course, he is a geek, drooling at the word “hacker”) that now, in the 83rd, will become banally boring. Seriously, a schoolboy-hacker who saves the world, special services, whose ranks are complete idiots, a computer that thinks like a schoolboy (and also, elementary school). Should it be funny, exciting, or how should it be perceived? It's a banal farce. Not funny, but stupid. I always want to parody Captain Picard and cover my face with my palm. Everything here is so bad that when the pterodactyl appeared in the frame (!), I was not particularly surprised. Why not, actually?
Most surprisingly, the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay. It’s like being nominated for Best Screenplay by Michael Bay. Yes, baby, it was the dashing eighties, and film critics broke away as they could.
Needless to say, all that pretentious music going on the soundtrack is completely unsuitable for what is happening on the screen (except, perhaps, the ending). Here would be a perfect match for the infamous melody of the chase from the Benny Hill Show, not these orchestrations. She's not bad on her own, though. So is the operator. So do some actors. But! If you take several incompatible ingredients, mix, and season with triple cologne, it will not be edible.
Someone writes about deep thoughts in the film. Don’t let your car make strategic decisions? There are no winners and losers in war? Yes, deep thoughts, class so for the fifth secondary school. And can there be deep thoughts in a film in which a schoolboy and a girlfriend save the whole world?
The result: anti-scientific (and illogical) nonsense, from the category of "Hackers". Better, listen to the main antagonist, and instead of watching, and really, play chess. After all, this is a really great game and the deepest thought in this delusional film.
4 out of 10
Now it is difficult without a smile to look at the possibilities of the Internet, which are described in this picture. But that doesn’t make the movie any less attractive.
A teenager who wants to have a little fun with rather simple computer toys involuntarily drives the computer crazy, which can threaten the beginning of a new world war. Of course, not without cranberries, but despite all its absurdity, the plot is perceived quite easily.
For some reason, on the basis of this film there was a place even for long abstract reasoning... I don’t know, I didn’t do anything like that. This is just a good work, absorbed the stereotypes and fears of the time, which will not allow you to get bored for all 2 hours.
By the way, in the main role the young Matthew Broderick is filmed, so his fans are recommended first of all, but the casual guest here has something to see.
7 out of 10
The threat of nuclear war was a source of inspiration not only for metal rock bands, Hollywood businessmen, of course, could not stay away from such a fertile topic, shooting films in the range from drama to post-apocalyptic action movie, but it was “War Games” from John Bedham from among those works that claim to be a cult film and timeless cinema. Bedham clearly grasped the then trends of cinema - to shoot a movie at the same time entertaining and dynamic, at the same time serious, so that a couple of thoughts when watching necessarily pass through, and the mandatory presence of a couple of bright teenagers, and so bright that they easily beat all adults, from parents to the directors of the FBI and the CIA. In general, Spielberg cinema, the highest level, a kind of Indiana Jones, adapted to the nuances of the Cold War. There are no special effects, but in the presence of an extremely thoughtful script, which Badham quickly turns into a tense thriller from a series of non-stop, not forgetting of course about a lot of comedic moments. The actors are selected very well and with budget savings, there are no expensive superstars, here either beginners like Matthew Broderick or Ellie Sheedy, or excellent supporting actors, in any case the types are well worked out. Very impressive is General Berenger, the head of the strategic center, performed by Barry Corbyn - a brave Pentagonman, with a constant cigar and with pleasure swearing, very colorful, charming and shit unlike the NATO hawk, one of the best finds of the film, reminiscent of the famous Soviet actor of past years Boris Andreev; surprised Dabney Coleman - a good comedy actor, but here he is absolutely serious, head of the computer department of the strategic center. The Nuclear Missile Launch Control Center itself is damn good, it is said to be worth a lot of money, but it was worth it – everything was implemented carefully and extremely reliably. You believe it unconditionally. The film was nominated for an Oscar, including for cinematography, it is probably from a chic frame, shot in Colorado, when Broderick’s hero called from a phone booth against the background of the local surroundings – green trees, blue sky, a huge trucker and monumental Rocky Mountains with a snow cap. Incredible shot, immediately want to quit everything and go live in Colorado.
What's the movie about? About how much a person can trust new technologies and the computer in particular, and how far it can go, is a beaten topic, but in the early 80s really gaining momentum, the leading edge, so to speak (in a year James Cameron will remove his vision of this issue and in much darker tones). Almost 2-hour movie and without any computer animation, but looks in one breath, it means that Bedham is a tough guy and a real specialist in adventure-comedy thrillers-fighters, the old Hollywood guard. How good it is that today John does not remove fantasy fouffo and remakes of action films of the past, already in the traditions of our time.
10 out of 10