Review of Blackhat (2015) by Ronald F — 18 Jan 2015

I had read the reviews and saw the low discouraging ratings in the 30's before going to see it anyway.

Simply put -it IS watchable and entertaining.

I felt it kept moving at a decent pace, but I watch alot of documentaries and other very dull content, so my acceptance of pacing may be skewed.

There are quite a few bad character development and why did we need that character at all plot components, the sister comes to mind, but she is used to try to justify half of the movie. It is NOT Shakespeare, and closer to Suzanne Collins.

The tech issues are similar to Harrison Ford movie Firewall where things may be possible but are pretty improbable. The story relies on many systems not having segregation of systems- for the non-network savvy that means really stupid network administrators and designers at many locations. but in Clifford Stolls' book "The Cuckoo's Egg" he described just suck issues at the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in California, granted that was in the late sixes and early 70's when only academics and engineers and "hackers" were on the international networks yet to become the WWW. So it could still be possible, but is highly unlikely.

All that said, It is a watchable movie my wife said it was a 3 out of 5 movie but here she would only give it a 47%. I'm at a solid 65% No awards possible, made for TV quality, some soap opera lighting or old british type lighting.

If you can enjoy a tech based story, with its' share of flaws and can suspend the that's just dumb moments -go see it, if not, watch it later on netflix.