Review

Blackhat

Nicolas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), Lien Chen (Wei Tang) and Mark Jessup (Holt McCallany) work to stop a global cybercrime network in Michael Mann’s Blackhat.
Nicolas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), Lien Chen (Wei Tang) and Mark Jessup (Holt McCallany) work to stop a global cybercrime network in Michael Mann’s Blackhat.

Making the world of cyber intrigue thrilling onscreen is a formidable challenge. A challenge that proved too much for veteran director Michael Mann. After trying a variety of strategies toward making hacking look as bracing as the shootouts and fights in Heat and Collateral, Mann gives up and goes back to the stuff he has always done.

As a result, Blackhat (a term for computer criminals) is, not surprisingly, great to look at and features enough flying lead to propel a zeppelin. While it's certainly comforting to know that Mann knows how to celebrate our Second Amendment rights, it's hard to get involved with a story that features characters with less depth than a Mario Brother.

Blackhat

74 Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Wei Tang, William Mapother, John Ortiz, Holt McCallany, Leehom Wang, Ritchie Coster, Yorick van Wageningen, Spencer Garrett

Director: Michael Mann

Rated: R, for violence and some language

Running Time: 133 minutes

Leehom Wang (Lust, Caution) stars as Chinese computer security expert Chen Dawai, who has the unenviable task of figuring out how hackers from another part of the world managed to bring one of Hong Kong's nuclear reactors almost to meltdown. Knowing the usual troll living in his mother's basement couldn't have pulled off such a deadly attack, Dawai recruits his sister Lien (Wei Tang) and an FBI agent (Viola Davis, doing what she does in How to Get Away With Murder, only less effectively) to find the evil genius who pulled off the strike.

Actually, Dawai also knows that the hackers aren't master coders because the program that got them into the nuclear plant was one he wrote with an MIT classmate, Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth). The code has been floating around for years, but Dawai figures the only way to find the bad guys would be to team up with Nick again before the bad guys attack another high profile target. Coaxing him might not be too hard, for Nick -- currently imprisoned for cyber-mischief -- has a thing for Lien.

Mann quickly takes his team of sleuths all across East Asia as they try to find and then outwit an invisible villain. While the virtual world offers loads of opportunity for hiding one's identity, it's hard to be afraid of a heel who might not even be real. When he does show up, the tale takes on all the tension and excitement of a Windows 95 screen saver.

Mann and screenwriter Morgan Davis Foehl introduce some jarring plot twists and a pivotal romance, but neither makes the tale feel lived in because none of the characters has pulses. While Hemsworth's abs do make their requisite appearance, the wait hardly justifies their unveiling.

If Mann has nothing interesting to say about where computers have taken crime and espionage, he at least finds dozens of scenic places to have his characters killed. It's great to see Mann make fine use of Chinese and Indonesian locales and figure out an intriguing way for the final shootout to avoid anybody but the combatants noticing it.

MovieStyle on 01/16/2015

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