Movie review: WarGames (1983)

It's been a long time since I saw a movie! Almost 5 months, if we don't count Golden Kamuy's live actions I've been tearing through.

But today, I was in the mood for some kitsch and more specifically the Hackerman kind.

Despite my expectations instantly readjusted to "Hollywood blockbuster mode" by the first few scenes, I had fun watching our hacker boy get himself into deep shit and trying to get out of it! I was also quite surprised to have such a movie forego the classic nerd stereotype, David was relatively well adjusted and got a cute girl attached to him right from the start.

What I meant by "Hollywood blockbuster mode" is the following:

• The needless insertion of a small coming of age/romance subplot, would have been more focused with a friend instead; although this wasn't too distracting or time consuming, to be honest. And she was very cute.
• While I liked the Connection Machine style aesthetics, the beep-boops and various other sci-fi computer sounds have aged very badly.
• On the subject of sound, the soundtrack was 200% 80s Hollywood, fit for The Goonies. The obnoxious and overused "tense brass and military drums" motif deserves a special place in eyeroll hell.

All of this prevented me from taking it seriously and achieving immersion at any point. Those war room scenes were light-years away from the riveting tension found in that legendary Patlabor 2 scene or even Dr. Strangelove… but if you correct your initial expectations to something like Indiana Jones or Back to the Future with computers, you'll have pleasant watch.

So, lots of bad Hollywood kitsch yet with a decently accurate portrayal of computers (even the WOPR wasn't far-fetched in an era of expert systems and research into self-learning). I was entertained.

Fun PS: according to the Times, the movie got then president Reagan and his administration to tighten their computer security policy.