Insipid `Hackers' assumes stupidity on the viewer's part

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RATING: *

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by Chris McKenzie

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However, they seem to have not expected us to know anything about computers.

Directed by Iain Softley ( Backbeat ), Hackers centers around Dale Murphy (newcomer Johnny Lee Miller), who as an 11-year-old was put on probation for writing a particularly nasty virus that crashed more than 1,500 systems in one day.

Now, 18 years old and off probation, he hooks up with a group of hackers in his new high school and assumes the handle "Crash Override." Among his new friends, he finds the girl of his dreams, a fellow hacker named Kate (Anjelina Jolie).

Meanwhile, another member of the group has gone and dabbled in the mainframe of a big corporation. He accidentally finds some files that reveal a big embezzling scheme, and the mainframe operator (Fisher Stevens) finds out about it. The operator does everything possible in the realm of computing to protect his butt; he makes the hackers' lives miserable in the process. Meanwhile, the young hackers race to find solid proof of the crime.

Most of us, when we think of hackers, think of dweebs with thick glasses who lock themselves up in their bedrooms night and day forgetting to eat and sleep because they are so absorbed in their computer tasks.

But apparently we've been wrong all along. Hackers contends that today's members of this subculture find time between their conquests to throw back a drink at the local "hacker club." They're cool and sexy, and have impeccable social skills. They wear nothing but the coolest, most expensive clothes and ride around New York City on rollerblades.

And these high school students draw upon their wealthy urban parents to buy the most sophisticated computers money can buy. They prefer the portable variety, but, not willing to sacrifice speed, they find models that leave those primitive ol' Power PCs in the dust.

You get the picture -- the entire setup of the characters as hackers is completely unbelievable. Even a die-hard believer can't avoid thinking that all the flash and glamour in this movie is not only campy, but stupid. Hackers also suffers from "Where'd-they-get- that -software?" syndrome, where the computer effects are jazzed up for the sake of entertainment. In most movies, this isn't a bad thing; just about every computer movie has to do it to some degree so the viewer can easily follow what's going on.

But instead of just making things easier to understand, Hackers throws all reality aside in exchange for glitz. The big bad corporation's mainframe is so physically large that one walks into it rather than sitting down at it. Its interface is so user-friendly that all you have to do is say "Disinfect" to get rid of any pesky virus (beat that, Bill Gates). And we know whenever the hackers stumble onto a particularly juicy bunch of data because complex mathematical equations fly in three dimensions across the screen while fractals form in the background. And we all thought Netscape was cool.

In the '80s, computers were still a big unknown in the mind of the average American. Thus, in the big computer movies of the time -- WarGames , Electric Dreams , Tron , and even The Terminator -- the antagonist was the computer itself, grown too intelligent for men to control.

Now, in the '90s, computers are much less of an unknown. Our familiarity with them grows continuously as they become more and more a part of our daily routine. As a result, the bad guys in computer movies such as The Net and Hackers are no longer the computers, but the people, usually corporations, who manipulate them for their own dastardly goals.

Being so familiar with computers means that we know what they can and can't do. Hackers ignores that fact and presents us with a hip, trumped-up version of a world that we know to be different. It would be insulting if it weren't so dumb.

This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the September 29, 1995 issue.

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