Algorithm

This movie would be slow and boring, for those who don't appreciate the cerebral. However the cerebral is a big part of the story. The movie tries to steer you towards liking their good guy. But what the supposed good guy does and what he is, is not good. I sympathized with his plight, and what happened to his friends by their connection to him. But there my sympathy ends. He knew what he did was wrong, and he did it anyway. I have no empathy for people who's very job is to knowingly and illegally harm others, however removed they might feel they are from it. This movie is Pandora's box all over again, but with a technological modern spin. I give it an 8 of 10. It proves once again, that the best movies are still about story, even if technology is a big part of the story. One of those good low budgeters we all like to see, and very rarely do.

This is a great example of a movie that will interest a certain type of person. Make a movie about surfing and even though its garbage many surfers will love it. If you're a hardcore nerd, conspiracy theorist or just anti-establishment then Algorithm will probably appeal to you. Everyone else, that is 99% of viewers, should pass.

As a narrated film we have to endure the lead actor's endless rambling thoughts throughout, on top of that we get some 'Hacker's Principles' - oooh they've stumbled upon something big, now they must find out what it is and expose the authorities for the bad guys they are.

As the movie progresses it becomes ridiculously implausible with miscast characters. We're supposed to believe a top-secret agency working for the government has no security with a sole receptionist sitting at a table typing on a laptop. Of course anyone can walk in - or out for that matter.

The only saving grace for this film is the character Decimate who adds some humor (and a second star to my review), otherwise its as bland as you can get. At the end to call it an anti-climax is an understatement, the synopsis says our man is "thrust into a revolution", whoever wrote that should be sued for misinformation.

In fact its hard to think of a movie that accomplishes less than Algorithm, but then again after watching some may beef-up their passwords so all is not lost.

I discovered this "gem" late one night on youtube and thought I'd give it a try. I'm a fan of hacker related movies, so I thought that there could be something here...

Well from the very first frame I realized this was just going to be a waste of time. I'm not even sure where to start. The acting, the direction, the boring characters and story... I mean I thought Insecurity (2007) had a number of issues, but at least it was enjoyable.

Any argument I've seen for why this movie is good is laughable. "It's not a movie, IT'S A WAY OF LIFE!" K bud..

I could pick it apart piece-by-piece, but trust me when I say this is a waste of time.

So, as others have pointed out, this is not a very good film. The concept is that a hacker in San Francisco stumbles upon a top secret tracking program built by defense industry contractors and it upends his life. It's not the worst idea for a film; as the Snowden leaks revealed, some of the conspiracy theories out there concerning big brother-ish government surveillance are a little less tinfoil hat than we used to think. But ultimately the film is weighed down by awful acting, stilted dialogue, and abundantly mediocre cinematography, to the point that watching the whole movie becomes more of an endurance test than a pleasurable experience.

The most notable thing about the movie is that the screenwriter took the time to research some coherent information about how hacking and related technologies work, although that said they still manage to get a large number of things wrong or only partially correct. So for instance they reference a security flaw present in many devices manufactured during a certain time range which, unfortunately, is all too real.But then the protagonist mentions that a mystery program was written in a proprietary programming language, which is possible, but very unlikely for quite a few reasons not worth going into here. And then the most important hack is completed by obtaining the username and password of the head of a government agency from just some guy he knows. I can't even begin to tell you how many layers of wrong that is.

But movies rarely get the technical details right, so all of those issues could probably be overlooked if they enabled an interesting story. Unfortunately, they don't. The acting is just so, so bad. And the ever present monotone voice narration is incredibly overused as a lazy exposition tool. Finally, the visual appeal is zero. Every scene feels like it was shot in someone's apartment building under harsh fluorescent lights.

The bottom line is that this just isn't a good movie and I wouldn't recommend wasting your time or money on it.

I haven't seen a lot of movies, let alone hacker movies, but I can safely say that this one is NOT worth your time.

For a start, it's really slow. This film could have easily been shortened down to half an hour without losing anything important, because there are countless of slow pans that feel like they are there to just because they look good and take up time. Also, many scenes could be skipped entirely.

The story's message has a good intention, but is badly delivered, partly because you don't care about the characters, because you don't get to know them. You get bored by watching it. And that's a pity, because it feels like it has the potential to be a good movie, at least if you know something about the hacking stuff they are referring to. Right now it mainly wakes thoughts (and even that it somewhat fails to do, because of the above mentioned reasons), rather than being a enjoyable movie to watch. I have to say that I find the constant voice-over pretty good. Most of the things said feel meaningful and sound credible, and that is what saves the movie.

The cinematography looks like you would expect from a student, with more bokeh than thought going into the shots. It often looks pretty good, though. Unfortunately, the nice shots don't make up for the bad editing and the lack of camera angles in many scenes.

Many cuts are poorly made and makes it harder to follow the already not-so-great story. Also, you can clearly see many mistakes; the one time CGI is used, it's laughably obvious, for example. Another fail is in the very first scene where it looks like they remembered to add an effect halfway through the scene.

The sound editing is the worst I've ever heard. Terrible ADR, awful L-cuts and clumsy and audible switching between different microphones. I also miss music, especially in some unnecessarily long scenes, and when there is music, it's the same feeling throughout the whole movie.

I don't find the acting as bad as many other things in the movie, although it would probably not be considered acceptable in a good movie. I'm not that fussy with actors, though.

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To summarize, this movie is not worth your time, even if you are into hacking movies. It fails to deliver an enjoyable experience due to shortcomings in many areas. However, there is a small chance that you like the pacing and the way they try to deliver a message. Up to you if you want to risk 90 minutes of your life ;)