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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 6286
Released: August 25, 1998 |
| Our Price: $8.68 |
| Used Price: $3.50 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
"Hackers" chronicles a group of teenage computer wizards whose practical jokes land them in a dangerous industrial-espionage plot.System Requirements:Widescreen format 16x9-enhanced Languages: English (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround) French (Dolby Stereo surround) Subtitles: English French and Spanish Eight-page trivia booklet theatrical trailer Included Trivia Booklet Interactive Menus Video Format: Widescreen (no AR specified) Enhanced for 16x9 TVs English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround French: Dolby Digital Surround Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 027616716927 Manufacturer No: 907169
Description of Hackers:
As a depiction of the computer-hacker underground, this movie is bogus to the bone. As a thriller, it's cartoonish and conventional. The premise (computer-happy kids hack into the wrong system, and the Forces of Repression come after them) is recycled from John Badham's 1983 WarGames. And the corporate-creep bad guy, played by Fisher Stevens, steeples his fingers and growls mossy villainous clichés. ("By the time they realize the truth, we'll be long gone with all the money.") For all its postmodern trappings the movie is working with sub-prehistoric storytelling tools. But it does succeed on one level, as a movie about adolescent bonding and alienation. The director, Iain Softley, helmed the Beatles-in-Hamburg biopic Backbeat, and he seems to have an instinct for the emotions that pull kids together around common interests and the insecurities that drive them apart. The familiar crises of loyalty and betrayal have an ache of real loneliness. It doesn't hurt that the two stars, Jonny Lee Miller (Sick Boy Williamson in Trainspotting) and Angelina Jolie (Gia), are just about equally gorgeous and charismatic; their longing glances steam up the screen. --David Chute
Hackers Reviews:
Nostalgia at its best!! 
2009-12-03 - This movie is a perfect example of those films you watched without knowing how much you liked them until someone asks you about it. I just saw it again recently and it's still as amazing as the first time. Plus, it's a young Angelina Jolie! It's really worth seeing for all you movie buffs out there.
Corporate hacker villian on a skateboard
2009-10-15 - This is a review that for me can be summed up in one line, as stated in the title. The film's primary antagonist is an evil hacker (Fisher Stevens), black trenchcoat and all, who works for a major corporation... and also rides a skateboard. Just think about that for a moment. One part of you should be recoiling from the bad filmmaking, the other half should be saying something like "oh, the 90's... right...". (Er, and Angelina Jolie is really hot in this as well, and that deserves mention).
But come on- this super evil corporate guy who wears black and has it out for our heroes... also rides a skateboard. Yes, this is a great movie. I might clarify- this is a great movie in the b-movie way.
Our movie stars... a hacker. Johnny Lee Miller actually does a pretty good job with this role, with his usual intensity. Supporting him are a few names that would quickly rise to higher fame following this film- particularly Angeline Jolie (who is really hot in this movie, did I mention that?) and Matthew Lillard, who both play very eccentric hacker prototypes in unique ways. Opposing our hero are Fisher Stevens (on the skateboard) and Penn Jillette (insert here a joke about how no magician could save this script). The acting really does tend to be pretty good- it's the situations and "hacker" cliches that really make (or break) this movie.
First up, everyone knows that when you use a computer you see a 3d animation that looks like a blueprint of New York on your screen, right? And when you want to do anything on a computer, you pound keys as fast as you can and the faster you press the better the results, yes? These elements are in extreme force here. Also seen are corporations being really evil just because corporations are evil, and lower-end goons falls to three-stooges-esque verbal and physical gags, but all of that sort of misses the point.
In the end, what this really is, is a glorious celebration of hacker culture and the misconceptions surrounding it. There's a tremendous amount of this movie that's actually very well-researched and smart, such as "human engineering" techniques that wouldn't really enter the mainstream for some time. Then again, there's also heaps of the aforementioned cliches and general Hollywood ridiculousness. In that sense however, this movie is a real cultural icon, chock full of obvious marketing ploys to try to make the movie look hip for the new generation (which is probably a trademarked slogan now that I think about it).
So Hackers is a fun movie. Modern movie fans might equate it to an experience like Zoolander in terms of good fun that's not meant to be taken too seriously. But there's really a decent emotional core about real hacker culture buried in here. Not the media image of kids who break into bank accounts to steal money from innocent strangers, but the real hackers- the kids who are bored and made fun of in school, who find out that computers just might be the only thing they're really good at, and the computer-using culture is the only place where they feel they fit in. This movie has heart in that respect, and goes on to top off that bit of heart with a lot of over-the-top fun and have I mentioned how attractive Angelina Jolie is in this movie?
Pick this movie up today if you like poking fun at B-movies, and you'll have a blast. Pick it up if you used to be one of those downtrodden kids who turned to computers for escapism, and you'll get a lot of that escapism here. Pick up this flick if you think that computer hackers and villains on skateboards sound like dumb ideas worth making fun of. A lot of people can have a lot of fun with this one, and I recommend it highly.
Early Angelina
2009-10-11 - This is a period piece in computer-geek cinema. It is a classic story. It is a must-have for any Angelina Jolie collection though it is pretty tame compared to her later work.
Hackers
2009-09-04 - This movie is one of my favorite movies I owned the VHS tape until it broke and when I seen it on Amazon.com I just had to get it. It's awesome I love this movie and since I have purchased it I have watched it several times now. It is a wonderful addition to our movie collection.
hackers!
2009-07-08 - great movie. true classic. loved the music and the story lines. if you enjoy this movie you will also like the pest
