Blackhat (2015)

[K1stpierre]

Discuss

[Jake Gittes]

I really wanted to like this, but the script and performances range from average to atrocious (except for Viola Davis, who still isn't on screen that much), and while Mann can still deliver a great shootout and a few evocative shots of a city at night, he doesn't really elevate the movie otherwise. Everything he does here, he's already done much better in other movies over the past 35 years. 

[darkelf]

This movie was so unremarkable. Unfortunately.

 

5/10

[4815162342]

The two shootouts, especially the one where 60% of the main characters die in the span of 2 minutes, were very well staged, and Mann is able to get some nice slow-boil old-school tension built in the final act, but a lot of the film feels pedestrian.

 

 

Plus the trailer flat out lied to us.

 

Villain in Trailer: "This isn't about money, this isn't about politics."

 

Villain in Movie: Actually he's totally about money. His big plan is straight out of the Lex Luthor playbook and he gets done in because he is obsessed with getting the money Hemsworth steals back instead of knowing when to pack up stakes and regroup for a new scheme.

[department store basement]

Michael Mann's first movie in 6 years doesn't focus much on story or dialogue, preferring instead to create its world through colors and images and to let its actors express themselves through body language.

 

I love love LOVE how this film, unlike 90% of others in Hollywood, doesn't treat computer programming like it's a "genius" thing to do. Probably not coincidentally, the lines of code shown on screen are accessible to people who don't know much about computer science (in comparison to most other movies where lines of code look like gibberish).

 

It's probably my favorite Michael Mann movie I've seen so far.

 

77/100 - B+

[Plain Old Tele]

I really enjoyed this. It's pretty goofy at times, particularly with the Hemsworth-Wei relationship, but it's nice to see a thriller take a fairly realistic swipe at cyberterrorism (I'm no hacker but pretty much everything shown in the movie has already happened in real life), and no one really does lyrical not city cinematography like Mann.

 

Plus, when was the last time you had two major Asian roles in a Hollywood feature?

 

Solid B for me. One of the more entertaining Manns in recent years. 

[jb007]

I watched it today. I liked it a lot. It is typical Mann and that is a good thing. The casting of Tang Lei and Wang Leehorn seems natural. Chris Hemsworth is better than I expected.

 

B+

[RobinHood26]

C+ (77)