I just watched
Blackhat, I probably never would have if it wasn't for people like BlueLion and Lucas around here. I thought it was a great film, and I really don't understand some of the scathing reviews and such low IMDb score that it has. Even if you didn't enjoy it, it still seems to be unfairly treated.
I wouldn't say the narrative isn't straightforward, although I have a couple of ideas why people really didn't like it. A minor one is the use of subtitles, and the major one would be the technological talk.
I know it uses quite a bit of computer jargon and that, but it really isn't that hard to understand, even if you don't completely understand what a certain thing is, or a word means, it explains things pretty clearly so that you know what's going on. You may have never used a linux computer, downloaded a PDF or heard of a keylogger, but its quite obvious that the guy has been sent a file with something in it to track what he types. It annoys me these days that people still seem really oblivious to some of these thing, or unwilling to learn. I just read a load of people say it seems unrealistic as well, but I never really thought that, it seemed for most the part fairly plausible to me, and even if you overlook little details it's easy to see that Mann is trying to deal with cyber terrorism on a larger scale than a few small incidents.
I liked the mixture of technology and violence, and some of sequences like that tunnel shoot out, the radiation retrieval part and the festival towards the end, were fantastic to watch. It kind of debunks the myth of what a computer hacker may be, and looks at it in a much more dangerous, and harmful way that goes beyond 'sad people'.
I liked the performances, I thought the romance stuff was a little corny at first, especially mixed in with the score. But it grew on me and became powerful by the end. Visually it also frustrated me at first, the handheld camera gives a real digital feel, and although I've seen it with people like Greengrass, this felt different, more cleaner and definitely unique. I like how Mann combined normal shots of different people within spaces and mixed this up with focus on specific objects, weapons, tools, computers. All the action, whether it be hacking or actual violence, all seemed coherent and respectful towards the viewer to me, far from what some reviews would have you believe.
I don't think it's a perfect film, there are a couple of liberties taken that you would expect from such a film, but I enjoyed it a lot, and I am close to calling it a great one, for now I give it
and I look forward to watching some more Mann films.
Reply to Topic
