SUE’S REVIEWS: BLACKHAT “Blackhat” is a 133 minute R-Rated Thriller directed by Michael Mann starring Chris Hemsworth (Nicholas Hathaway), Viola Davis (Carol Barrett), Wei Tang (Lien Chen), William Mapother (Rich Donohue) and John Ortiz (Henry Pollack). Nicholas Hathaway is a cyber-criminal felon who is serving time in prison for a hacking scam. He gets an unexpected visit from a high-level US security expert who makes a deal with him for his release. He will get his freedom if he agrees to work with American and Chinese agencies to help them capture another high-level cyber-criminal. This mysterious, shadowy criminal does not seem to be motivated by money, politics or terrorism as he carries out two computer attacks on Chicago’s soybean futures market and a Chinese nuclear power plant. Working together, the authorities and Nicholas pursue the cyber-criminal through Chicago, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Jakarta. This is one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time and it begs the question: “why was it even made”? There are not enough negatives to describe “Blackhat” but I will start with too long, too loud, too tedious, too confusing and too stupid. The first hour drags on with very little action and unintelligible, garbled dialogue which makes Chris Hemsworth sound like a super- smart Rocky Balboa (but it is sacrilegious to even mention “Rocky” (1976) in the same breath as this ridiculous movie). The last 73 minutes are not good but have a modicum of excitement (except I dont know what the excitement is all about). I wish I could definitely tell you what the title “Backhat” means (I think it is the name of the cyber-criminal but I am not certain). If you look up the definition of “hokie”, you will see it described as two people jumping on a train in Hong Kong (one of the most densely populated areas on the planet) with only 1 other person in view. The acting talents of Hemsworth and Viola Davis are totally wasted in this movie. The technical aspects of “Blackhat” are uniformly sub-optimal. The musical score (more like musical “sore”) consists of loud, repetitive booming that mimics the sound of someone hitting the side of your submarine with a sledge hammer. The photography and lighting are hazy and indistinct. The only thing worse than the garbled dialogue is the inconsistent intensity as it varies from low to loud (which I do not think was related to the theater itself). I could not understand half of what was being said but kept wishing I would hear “yo Adrian”. I am not sure why it has an R-Rating (except perhaps for mild violence that is much less than in your average video game). There are only two things that I like about this movie: the street scenes of exotic locations that I once visited including Jakarta, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon and the totally unpredictable motive and ending. But at that point, it was more of a “who cares” than a “who dunnit” anyway. I give “Blackhat” a 1.5 on the ABBONDANZOMETER (Scale of 1-10).
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 21:51:40 +0000
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