Hackers

It's 1995, you're into computers, and you have attitude. What was the hip thing to do when you were a 17-year old who fell into all of those categories back then? COMPUTER HACKING! Hackers is the perfect movie to describe the hip fad.

1,507 computer systems, including the Wall Street Trading Systems, are all crashed by a virus, which caused a seven point drop in the New York stock market. Who could've caused such magnificent damage? An 11-year old boy with superior intelligence, who uses his power as a destructive and anti-social end. The boy is Dade Murphey, who calls himself "ZeroCool", was responsible for this criminal act of a malicious nature. Dade's family was fined $45,000 and Dade was sentenced to probation, under which he was forbidden to own or operate a computer or touch tone telephone until the day of his 18th birthday.

Seven years later, the calander finally hits Dade's 18th birthday; can you take a guess at what he does first? That's right, he hooks up his good old Apple computer again and connects it to the phone! Even when his mother warns him not to stay up all night and to not repeat the mistake he made last time, Dade still continues to hack! Dade decies to change his handle from "ZeroCool" to "Crash Override" and is soon in a hackers battle with another hacker in the area. In the end of the battle, "Crash's" connection is terminated - I guess every hacker gets a little rusty when it's been seven years!

Even though being able to operate a computer and touch tone phone again, things aren't so great. Dade and his mother have moved from Seattle to New York during Dade's senior year in high school. Naturally, Dade has a hard time fitting in with the other kids in school. Fortunately, Dade finds out he is not the only hacker in his school and meets some rad hacker pals to hang out with, along with a cute enemey chicked named "Kate Libby", who is also a computer wiz.

While Dade is getting along in the hacking community and trying to impress Kate, there is a back story going on with another hacker; a middle aged, skateboarding, business hacker known as "The Plague". The Plague has created a virus called "The Da Vinci Virus", which treatens to destroy some military ships unless it receives $5 million dollars in seven days. So how does this tie in with Dade/Crash and the gang? Well one of Dade's n00b hax0r friends, Joey, tried hacking the Gibson computers, under the pressure from the others in the gang! What Joey ended up doing was copying a garbage file found in the Gibson's systems... which just happens to be the Da vinci Virus! When Joey tells Freak what happened, they find out they are being spied on and Joey is caught and busted by the FBI the next day!

The copy of the garbage file was put on a floppy disk and well hidden in Joey's room. The Plaque now threatens Dade and the gang for the copy in order for his evil hacking plan to pull through. The greatest hacking war of all time begins.

Hackers is an amazing movie and is cheesy to no end. Unlike other cheesy movies out there, this one actually had some decent production value and is a fairly popular cheese flick. The cast features such actors as Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, and Fisher Stevens (Ben Jabituya from the Short Circuit movies!).

One of the cheesiest features of Hackers are the actual hacking scenes themself! Whenever someone is hacking, their computer screens display a 3D world inside of what appears to be a cyber city made of computer chips and is loaded with vibrant bright colors and even some algebraic forms every now and then - just like real hacking! Hackers is also loaded with hilarious cheesy lines ("You're in the butter zone, baby."), cheesy special effects, a kickin' techno dance soundtrack, and excellent characters!

I can recommend this movie to lots of different people: cheese fans, computer experts (such as John Brandstetter), and people who love to make fun of the mid-90's. Hackers is yet another one of my all time favorite cheesy movies and the greatest thing about it is that it's fresh each time it's been watched. Mess with the best, die like the rest.

- Keranu Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 9:53pm USA Central Time