Director and writer Michael Mann’s new movie “Blackhat” starring Chris Hemsworth, Wei Tang, and Leehom Wang falls drastically short of 2009’s hit “Public Enemies”.

 

After a slightly overdrawn introduction highlighting the basis for the movie, the scene is set in Hong Kong, where an group of unknown computer hackers have infiltrated a nuclear power plant causing an explosion.

 

From here, the plot follows Chinese Captain Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang) and his computer genius sister Lien Chen (Wei Tang) as they work with American agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis). By striking a deal with international cyber criminal Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), the team tracks down the perpetrators by climbing the ladder of command and discovers the true motives of their leader.

 

The action scenes, meant to bring life into the film outside of the cyber world, felt too forced and a little awkward. The sound effects were inaccurate, there was a lot of extremely fake blood, and the camera shake was so bad at times it distracted from the film itself.

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That being said, the story itself was clever and enticing. Blackhat may be the first recent movie to successfully materialize the concept of computer hacking. Hemsworth gives a believable performance as his character evolves emotionally throughout the film. Whilst his friends and team are gradually killed off one by one, he is also confronted with a newly found love for his best friends sister (Wei Tang). As Hemsworth gets closer and closer to the target, there is no more option hiding behind a computer screen. The only way to ensure his own survival is hand to hand combat.

The film is now playing!