DrK0H

I didn't expect much when I saw this movie, yet it managed to astound me with the thoroughness of its badness. The music selection is horrible, the dialogue is horrible, the plot is horrible. They either didn't have a technical advisor or disregarded him. The SWAT members who are supposedly highly trained military/law enforcement personnel consistently fail to adhere to basic procedure, the technical flaws in the action and the overall scenario are pretty severe. The directing is very heavy handed for about the first half of the movie, then the video effects and stuff fade into a bland scene after scene progression. I was annoyed by the directing at first but by the finale I missed it; it at least was something to look at, once it fizzled the ASTOUNDINGLY predictable, generic plot and weak action aren't enough to be even moderately entertaining. The action wasn't engaging and climaxed clumsily, making the end seem abrupt. I'm sure there are several points I've overlooked, so to conclude I want to say that this is one of the most consistently flawed movies I've ever seen, comparable in many ways to a Straight to Video/Made for Cable but with a big budget.

I found this movie to be horrible. At the start, I was almost drawn in but was distressed by the continuity and plot inconsistencies many will notice. Also, the unlikely behavior of the characters made it difficult to grant license and lose myself in the movie. These inconsistencies are explained through a plot device that I have always found unappealing, (if you see the movie you know what the mechanism is) the use of this device and especially the fact that it is revealed halfway through the movie greatly devalues viewer's interest in the outcome, which I found to be thoroughly predictable. Conversely, if the finish hadn't been mostly revealed at that time the continuity errors may have made give up before the end, in short it just doesn't work. The psychological aspect and psychologist scenes are shallow and implausible. I actually think this setting would have worked better as a straight slasher. I also found the lack of gore disappointing. Characters die off in a blink of an eye, the audience has little chance to be fearful for them or develop tension, and only two scenes had any element of suspense at all for me. Once the mystery unravels our empathy for the characters is unraveled as well, and by the last 30 minutes of the film you're just waiting for the credits.

This movie is actually pretty watchable if you are a bit technical and don't mind viewing a film to laugh at its inherent badness. The script repeatedly uses networking lingo out of context and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of networking principles. My favorite scene is when they're searching logs for traces of a computer break-in and the hero exclaims when no traces are found "There's not even a cookie?!?". I expect even a non-tech should be able to find a couple of laughs about the overwhelming lack of technical advisement. Some understanding of distributed attacks and viruses might have helped, but I guess the idea of two hackers trying to out type each other works better for Hollywood. The cinematography is low-average for a made for TV. I liked Judge Reinhold's acting, and Kris Kristofferson, Bakula I found to be often flat or alternately overacted. Conclusion: Don't rent it unless you're into bad movies, worth catching on Cable on a slow day.