Hackers 1995

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: This is a movie that sums up the worst of the computer era: zapping you with techno-cliches and trapping you in constant visual crash and burn. Read more

David Kronke, Los Angeles Times: It gives you more insight into the minds of Hollywood hacks than of computer hackers. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: After the mechanics of the thriller plot start to kick in, the film drags. And when it's time for the big cyber-showdown, we're stuck, once again, with footage of frantic typing. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Hackers isn't a very good movie, but it's a darn sight more fun than The Net. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: Though this scheme involves loads of important data, it manages to sound dopey all the same. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Without being any sort of miracle, this engaging and lively exploitation fantasy-thriller about computer hackers, anarchistic in spirit, succeeds at just about everything The Net failed to. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: What's most grating about Hackers, however, is the guileless way the movie buys in to the computer-kid-as-elite-rebel mystique currently being peddled by magazines like Wired. Read more

Bruce Diones, New Yorker: The story is negligible, but it offers the same order of fun as a good rock video: the marriage of images and music. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: What's uncovered beneath the flashy skin is an old-fashioned, film-by-numbers thriller. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is well directed, written and acted, and while it is no doubt true that in real life no hacker could do what the characters in this movie do, it is no doubt equally true that what hackers can do would not make a very entertaining movie. Read more

Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle: What it lacks in substance and plausibility it makes up in inventive imagery and deft shadings of a world of scheming cyberpunks. Read more

Time Out: The sappy ending's hard to take, but the on-line showdown between The Plague, the Secret Service and the united worldwide community of hackers is nail-biting. Read more

Joe Leydon, Variety: There is a great deal more style than substance here. Read more

Joe Brown, Washington Post: How do you make typing look exciting? Read more

Hal Hinson, Washington Post: Tirelessly modish, hyper-glossy, super-superficial. It's also cacophonous. And, for all of its drum-beating for brain power, dumb. Read more