Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

I wanted to like WarGames: The Dead Code so bad, but there’s just no way it could have measured up to the classic anti-nukes movie from the early 80’s. One thing that made the original WarGames such a great movie is that it was pretty accurate in its portrayal of computer technology. This movie is so damn unrealistic that I think it shames the original movie.

In the original movie, a young man (Matthew Broderick) dials into a computer system and starts playing a game called Global Thermonuclear War. What he does not realize is that it’s a government computer, and the wargame is actually a simulation. While he’s having fun nuking the planet, half the government thinks they are on the brink of World War III. In this movie, a high school student (Matt Lanter) signs up to play some kind of online game where player’s bet real money to try and win. He ends up beating the game, and his skill at the game puts him on a terror watch list. Couple that with the fact that his mom works for a chemical company, and all of a sudden this kid is a national threat.

In the first movie, the computer system was friendly and playful. In this movie, it is completely evil and tries to kill people. The problem with the computer in this movie is that it can do anything. It has no limitations. This just adds another level to how unrealistic the movie is. In the first movie, the computer had a personality. In this one, it’s just a bunch of motherboards and wires strung together and it isn’t as scary as it is supposed to be. It has no heart, dang it!

The computer in this movie is programmed to respond to a terrorist threat by dropping a nuclear friggin’ bomb in the threat zone. No, really. That’s what happens when it identifies the video game kid. The whole plot of this movie hinges around some super computer deciding to nuke Philadelphia because some kid beat a high score at a really lame game where he used ‘terror tactics’ by making the right choice (out of two) when it comes to chemical warfare. The whole set up is stupid, and it never gets any better because that’s the basis for the entire movie.

I work in IT (information technology) and have done so for a little over 10 years now. I am also an avid movie watcher, and I take a special interest in anything that uses computers and technology as the centerpiece for the plot. Most of the time, and I really mean most of the time, movies that try to use computers or the Internet as a key plot element usually do so very badly. Sometimes the results can still be entertaining, like in Hackers, but sometimes they can just be stupid, like when Harrison Ford hooked a scanner up to a pink iPod in Firewall.

After watching this movie, I skimmed over the ‘Making of’ video in the DVD Special Features, and it has an interview with the screenwriter, Randall Badat. He openly admitted that he’s not a techie, so he had to get a couple of consultants to help with the story. While there were a couple of parts that at least have some basis in reality, most of the technology depicted in this movie is beyond ridiculous. From people writing programs by typing really fast for ten seconds, or the idea that shooting guns at computers forces them to give you a command prompt, this whole movie was made with very little regard to realism.

Since I’ve just accepted that proper depiction of computers is a rarity in Hollywood, I’m willing to overlook a lot of unrealistic things in exchange for a good story, nicely written dialogue, or even some good action. WarGames: The Dead Code has none of that. The worst part of this movie is the last fifteen minutes where it goes from unrealistic to friggin’ stupid in no time. To top it all off, they just recycled the ending of the first movie. How cheap is that?


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD

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