a long-winded review of hackers (1995) bc i've recently fallen in love with jonny lee miller

to whoever decided to label this movie as bad; i'd like to have a talk.

i didn't see this movie until just a few weeks ago (surprising, since i grew up watching my parents' old DVD collection which had a whole fuckton of 90's/2000's movies) and it's now my favorite thing ever.

is it stupid? occasionally. is it accurate at all to what actual hacking is/was? fuck no, and you know why? because hacking is fucking boring and no one would watch a movie entirely based on it unless there were flashy visuals to fill in the space of a bunch of random letters and numbers.

i read at some point that the director (or someone else, i can't remember) thought the same thing - people wouldn't want to watch a bunch of letters and numbers being typed intensely for 107 minutes. so, instead, he apparently wanted to visualize what hacking felt like. it probably would've been easy to do that, considering there were several real-life hackers working behind the scenes with the writer and director to make the movie feel, at least for a certain niche of people, somewhat accurate. so if anyone uses the whole 'it's completely inaccurate' argument - i don't care.

i think the real-life input shows in how the characters interact with each other. they all feel like actual teenagers. like some of the people i saw in high school. even though this movie was made 30 years ago, the characters themselves might as well have been written now. they're all witty, awkward, and immature, but still super smart and capable. jonny lee miller and angelina jolie also have real sickeningly good chemistry and i was not at all surprised to find out they got married right after this movie.

the plot is... good? i mean it's not the most invigorating plot in a movie i've ever seen, but i was never bored. and i kinda like how silly it all is. is the virus the plague uses the same one that dade used when he crashed wall street? maybe? why is the gibson the ultimate hack? who knows. who cares?? this movie is stupid, silly, campy 90's fun. the logistics don't fucking matter.

and, because this was 1995, this movie has the most ridiculously iconic costuming ever. vintage motorcycle jackets. a camo vest over a t-shirt. a bright red hip harness and a matching crop top. cheetah print on cheetah print. a mini-skirted kimono. weirdly shaped sunglasses. roller blades. i can't condense my love for the fashion in this movie into words.

also. music. this has a fucking wicked soundtrack. unbelievably 90's. massive attack. orbital. underworld. peak techno/trip hop goodness. if you don't watch the movie, just listen to the soundtrack because it's hard to beat.

really the only thing i don't love about this movie is the editing. some of the scenes feel almost out of order, like a few of them were switched around in the final cut. it doesn't bother me that much, but still a note. but, y'know, who gives a shit about the editing when 90's jonny lee miller has his cute bleach blond hair and wears a crop top at one point? definitely not me.

in short: this blog is just a really drawn out way for me to say that i love this stupid little 90's movie and all of it's cliches. i would recommend it to anyone who enjoys quality camp/cult movies.