NetForce

Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap's Sam Beckett) and Kris Kristofersson (Blade, Pat Garett and Billy the Kid) star in this below average TV movie. It seems quite a lot of money (for a TV movie) has been thrown at this but the pace at times is down to a crawl and Bakula's character seems to have become head of Netforce with a total lack of any computer knowledge. It's dated fairly badly but all movies about computers do that look at Wargames or Tron! But it's main problems are down to a flabby script, pedestrian direction and lack of tension as for the ending i'm not even going to go there! Let's just say it ain't great, I gave this film a 4/10 as it's not a total lost cause but i cant recommend spending 2+hours watching this when there are better films out there. If you want a hacker movie War Games (Mathew Broderick) or Sneakers (Robert Redford, River Phoenix) are better movies in the same sort of area or for a more MTV friendly teen hacker movie then go for Hackers (Angelina Jolie & Tommy Lee Miller).

4/10 - If there's nothing better on a rainy Sunday it might pass the time but thats about all, we can only hope the Quantum Leap movie gets off the ground to save Scott Bakula!

Oh boy,this was pretty dire.I like Tom Clancy the author very much.His books are cleverly and brilliantly constructed political/modern thrillers,with expert dialouge and good,detailed charecter and story development.More's the reason I feel pretty stupid renting this cheap,low grade nonsense when I could have ordered the book out my library and tested my brain and my limits much further.I had to sit still in my bedroom for 154 flat out minutes watching this endless and poorly,pacelessly constructed tirefest.Thank goodness for competent actors eh?Not so much thanks owed to poorer ones.Judge Reinhold was ace as a snidy,confident baddie.He deserved much better material than this.It was nice to see Kris Kristofferson in one of his better,more accomplished roles of late,although he only occupies a rough cut 25 minutes of screentime.And he kept appearing in daft hallucinations of himself in wanternly unnesarsary VR moments.On the flip side,oh my,Miss.Joanna'ooh,look what an accomplished young madam I am'Going,sharing screen chemistry with the equally vacuous Scot 'Hav'nt I moved on since Quantum Leap'Bakula,having a briefly explored on screen romance with a girl who must be at least 20 years younger than he is.And Brian Dehnehy is hopelessly flat and ineffective as Bakula's superior.Basically,I'd admire this one's cover,but please,don't bother with the movie,go read the book instead.

Netforce attempts to be a very serious technothriller in the year 2005, but fails miserably. Except for the fact that the plot is very tacky and not very well done, it's also spanned out over way to much time, the movie totals 2h40min. But this isn't really Netforce biggest problem. Being a bit of a geek myself this movie turned out to be much more of a comedy than a thriller. The technology and the events concerning it are so totally absurd that's unbelievable. Both me and my friends were virtually crying due to the sick things the director and/or Tom Clancy had in store. Some comments that sums it all up is "Phew, the Internet is intact!" and "Woah, another netcrash!". Deep, deep sigh. Not to mention the fact that the bad guys encryptions is broken in 3 seconds. Someone should tell them about, say RSA or DSS/DH algorithms. So, whatever you do, DON'T watch this movie unless a) You're totally nontechnical and can look aside all the gross mistakes or b) you're a hacker and wants a good laugh.

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.

Made for tv movies can never escape the feeling they we're made for television. The taste, the sight and the scent. It's always there. Tom Clancy's Netforce itself was originally a two part television movie (how little did I know). In fact, it's all still somewhat a wash. Let me break it down for you.

Flash forward to 2005. The internet has become so powerful and potentially dangerous that the US government sets up a division within the FBI entitled "Netforce" to preside over it from the evil people of the world who look to exploit it for their corrupt plans. Personally I seriously disbelieve the internet holds the future of the world in it's grasp, but that doesn't matter because the people at Netforce couldn't protect it if they had to anyway.

Upon meeting the major characters we realize they're roles we've all seen before. Like the male main character who's strong and dresses well. The rest of the cast fit typical molds. I especially liked how a certain character's ex-wife is a news reporter who at one point becomes a key piece in the story. Everyone is so linked together. Realistic? No. Then again none of the characters have any real depth. They're just names and faces. There's also too many needless minor characters who provide nothing but padding and viewer confusion. It gets hard remembering twenty characters throughout a two plus hour movie. I want to give credit for trying to develop them, but it fails because we know they're insignificant.

Frankly I expected more from such an ensemble cast too. Scott Bakula gets to look smart in suit, but this could have benefited from someone with more clout than Bakula. He's sufficient, but that's about it. Meanwhile Kris Kristofferson gets the cliché elder role and good 'ol Brian Dennehy has been given the plum task of the President's Chief Of Staff. That means him popping up spewing 'How his ass is on the line' or 'the President's p***ed at him'. Yes good actors can't save bad scripts. That's a fact. Which bothers me even further because this product has Tom Clancy's name written all over it. Yet it isn't anywhere near the quality of his past outings. It's a real disservice. Some of the blame has to fall straight into the writer's lap too. I say this because I find it hard to see this as an adaptation project that started well. It was bad from the get-go. The story stinks. It's amateur hour.

Especially considering how much they squeeze into their time frame. Would more have helped? I'm hesitant to say. Even with over two hours they still came back with this slop. Frankly 160 minutes is a long time and there isn't enough depth to sustain a person's interest or the holding of disbelief for such a period.

It can't even be taken seriously. Like Judge Reinhold playing the 'evil multi-billion dollar software tycoon' looking to control the world or how corny it is to have FBI agents point loaded weapons in the faces of innocent cabdrivers. It's things like these that help make Netforce such a bore and honestly for a film dealing so heavily with computers and the internet, they sure went skimpy on the technical aspects too. I guess they didn't want to lose their biggest viewing demographic ... computer inept coach potatoes and patriotic Tom Clancy fans.

For what it's trying to be, NetForce offers very little (if any) paranoia, suspense or "edge of your seat excitement" as so called critics would say. Netforce draws nothing but boredom and that's not exactly new territory. Last thing too. A golden rule of movies. If they don't find a body 95% of the time that's a clear signal the person ain't dead. That's the facts.