Simply A Masterpiece

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Masterpiece!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick, a couple of kids, become involved in something that is far beyond them. Broderick, who knows computers (in1983), inadvertently gets into a game (or so he thinks) of Thermonuclear War. It turns out that he has actually hacked into a military program that is feeding the U.S. information about that very subject. It's not a game as he thought it was but he also realizes what is happening. Now the problem is that he needs to convince someone what is going on, and they, then, have to put a stop to it. Think what little effect the computer world had in those days and realize how dangerous they have become. Good chemistry by two future stars.

Seeing this again, 30 years later, I'm of two minds. There's still a lot to enjoy in this slightly Disney version of an end-of-the-world thriller. There's a lot of clever twists in the plot, some lovely performances, some real tension. But it also all feels a bit light and softened to make it more audience friendly. That was probably the right decision commercially, but maybe not artistically. If original director Martin Brest had been allowed to finish the film, with the somewhat darker original script I read back then, I wonder if this could have been a bit of a minor classic, in the family of great nuclear war films like Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, instead of an entertaining, intelligent thrill ride. There are also, on reflection some big logic holes you could fly missiles through. But at the end of the day, I still enjoyed re-seeing it, smiling a good deal of the time.

WarGames is your typical 80's action/teen angst flick on one hand, but on the other hand it is a very intelligent film that seems to be ahead of it's time, or rather a type of film that wouldn't be made on a regular basis for another decade. I like how the film doesn't overstuff us with computer terminology, but it also doesn't think it's audience is dumb. It's filled with good special effects, an intelligent story (involving supercomputers), good acting, and is practically your perfect 80's film.John Badham's film is about a young computer whiz named David Lightman who hacks into the government computer system and he begins to play a game with the computer. But little did he know that he just started the process of a World War Three.The acting is rather good, though one could say this film is more about the computers, rather than the human characters. Matthew Broderick was a special actor in the 1980's and was one of the better teen actors. we might remember Ally Sheedy from her role in "The Breakfast Club," but she does good for the most part. We also get some quality supporting turns from Dabney Coleman and John Wood.Overall, WarGames is a movie that is ahead of it's time and it should be every computer hacker's dream movie. This is another film that has computers too smart for it's own good, and I was reminded very much of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both of these films are very smart sci-fi movies. This movie is also realistic and pushes across the thought on what would happen if technology took over the world. I rate this film 9/10.

I liked this movie when it came out and I like it even more now. A very young Matthew Broderick plays a computer geek who stumbles his way into a super secret site linked to a computer with programs replicating nuclear war. At the same time your gumment decides to use the computer to activate nuclear missiles in the event of war. You can connect the dots for what happens next. There are some really special performances, including Ally Sheedy as Broderick's "little friend" (and absolutely enchanting); Corbin as crusty General Beringer; and Wood as the fascinating Dr. Falken. Some of the stuff could be a little hard to accept - like how fast Broderick and Sheedy get around to places towards the end - but it's all so wonderfully played out that it doesn't really matter. You also get a neat look at the very start of the PC age. A true cinema gem of the 80s.