Review of WarGames (1983) by Lafe B — 22 Aug 2009

Saturday Night Fever director John Badham created a techno-thriller which is one of the best films of the 1980's. Yes, the technology has dated alot in the 25 years since it's release, but watching this film may make it's viewer quite teary eyed and nostalgic for technology of old.

Even the plot is believable, as hacking is happening all the time these days. It begins with teenage computer whizz kid David (Matthew Broderick), who uses his computer to fix his school grades amongst other things.

Then, he accidentally hacks into a top secret government super-computer, which has total and complete control over the U.S. Army's nuclear weapons. David begins what he believes to be an innocent computer game where the U.

S. fight Russia, but the computer believes it to be true, and pushes the world to the brink of World War 3. David and his friend Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) need to find Professor Falken (John Wood) who manufactured the computer in order to put a stop to this.

It's a very exciting film, and even for those who don't like computer technology within films will find alot to enjoy here. Broderick made his film debut here and does well too. A film well ahead of it's time, it has appearances from Eddie Deezen as a geeky computer nerd, and the great Dabney Coleman as the slimey McKittrick.