This movie was not too bad, but it wasn’t great. You might find it entertaining, but you probably won’t find it amazing.
I don’t know if you saw Eagle Eye or not, but this movie was based on a similar but not identical idea. It had quite a bit of potential and some interesting twists, and overall I had fun watching it. It also had some good dialogue (“Yuri the Hacker: In Prague, there is no Radio Shack, only Yuri!”) and some good action scenes. Even though the acting was unexceptional, this could have been a really good hacker/conspiracy film if the essential premise of the movie had been more original. Unfortunately, the premise and key plot elements were just a replay of ideas and tropes that we have all seen over and over again in science fiction for the last 30 years. An original treatment of those ideas could have made the story way better.
Eagle Eye had the same problem, although it had a different plot. It was also a repeat of 30-year old science fiction. Both of these movies ultimately re-hashed episodes of the original Star Trek and Outer Limits and a lot of sci-fi movies that I saw as a kid. That said, I was still entertained by it. It did have a couple of original ideas (at least original in film), and a lot of this movie was well done and enjoyable to watch despite its failings. If you like hacker/conspiracy movies and you don’t expect more than light entertainment, you will probably enjoy it.
It looks like this movie was actually released overseas (in Russia) before it was released on video here in the US. I noticed that the director, Greg Marcks, also directed 11:14. Since I probably won’t take the time to give a full review of 11:14, I’ll give my mini-review: Stylistically derivative, but an interesting and entertaining movie. It’s a story told in the style of the films Crash and Babel. Both of those movies remind me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut’s storytelling style: A montage that eventually ties together with a wha-bam! To be fair, Babel came a year after 11:14. Crash was thought provoking and pretty awesome. 11:14 was entertaining and a bit shocking. Babel made me ask, “Cool, but why this story?”
Man, that makes me want to write a review of Sydney Lumet’s ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and “Serpico”. Let’s see if I can get around to it.
- Director: Greg Marcks
- Length: 1 hour, 45 minutes
- IMDB: Echelon Conspiracy
