Just to begin, I want anyone reading this to take my review with a grain of salt; I did not finish this movie. I walked out of the theater about three-fourths of the way through.
I know that Michael Mann has made other movies that have been deemed good (I personally haven't seen Heat and others), but his direction in this movie is just awful. The best way I can explain the direction in Blackhat is a combination of high-budget student film and found-footage junk. Many shots just don't make sense and others are close-ups on Chris Hemsworth's face, but in the worst way.
The acting is pretty awful. Everyone sounds like their just reciting lines and not really acting. The pacing even sounds like their waiting for their fellow actors to find where on the page they are so they can say the right lines. I feel like Chris Hemsworth is the only one who is really trying and his American accent is actually believable.
I don't often complain about sound design in a movie, but I have to make a special case for Blackhat. Scenes where shots were fired and explosives ignited were so loud that I actually had to cover my ears in the movie theater. Sometimes, in the middle of sentence in a block of dialog, the volume would change dramatically, and it sounded awful. Also, there is A LOT of really awful and painfully obvious dubbing in this movie, and almost what seems like stock sounds not matching up what I saw on screen.
This whole movie, or at least the parts I watched, were incredibly boring. After a while, I went to the bathroom and before I went back into the auditorium, I found myself reading the fine print of movie posters around the door. That was more interesting to me than the "hacker action movie." I also just want to say that I feel like this movie insulted my intelligence. I know that sounds pretentious, but seriously, you would have to know absolutely NOTHING about computers for this make sense to you. Having some coding experience, this movie just seems stupid to entice people who like flashing lights. Code is not drag-and-drop, code does not look like it does in the film, and your I.P. address is not the same thing as a URL.
The characters were incredibly dull and absolute zero chemistry together, which just made their interactions that much more "why?" Finally, I could write an entire novel on the weird inconsistencies in the plot and things in the movie that just make absolutely no sense.
The only reason, and I mean THE ONLY REASON, I am giving this movie two stars is that there is a fight sequence featuring Chris Hemsworth near the beginning that is actually pretty bad ass.
I know that Michael Mann has made other movies that have been deemed good (I personally haven't seen Heat and others), but his direction in this movie is just awful. The best way I can explain the direction in Blackhat is a combination of high-budget student film and found-footage junk. Many shots just don't make sense and others are close-ups on Chris Hemsworth's face, but in the worst way.
The acting is pretty awful. Everyone sounds like their just reciting lines and not really acting. The pacing even sounds like their waiting for their fellow actors to find where on the page they are so they can say the right lines. I feel like Chris Hemsworth is the only one who is really trying and his American accent is actually believable.
I don't often complain about sound design in a movie, but I have to make a special case for Blackhat. Scenes where shots were fired and explosives ignited were so loud that I actually had to cover my ears in the movie theater. Sometimes, in the middle of sentence in a block of dialog, the volume would change dramatically, and it sounded awful. Also, there is A LOT of really awful and painfully obvious dubbing in this movie, and almost what seems like stock sounds not matching up what I saw on screen.
This whole movie, or at least the parts I watched, were incredibly boring. After a while, I went to the bathroom and before I went back into the auditorium, I found myself reading the fine print of movie posters around the door. That was more interesting to me than the "hacker action movie." I also just want to say that I feel like this movie insulted my intelligence. I know that sounds pretentious, but seriously, you would have to know absolutely NOTHING about computers for this make sense to you. Having some coding experience, this movie just seems stupid to entice people who like flashing lights. Code is not drag-and-drop, code does not look like it does in the film, and your I.P. address is not the same thing as a URL.
The characters were incredibly dull and absolute zero chemistry together, which just made their interactions that much more "why?" Finally, I could write an entire novel on the weird inconsistencies in the plot and things in the movie that just make absolutely no sense.
The only reason, and I mean THE ONLY REASON, I am giving this movie two stars is that there is a fight sequence featuring Chris Hemsworth near the beginning that is actually pretty bad ass.