WarGames

dunpealhunter is wrong - this movie is, and always will be, an amazing movie to watch.

One of my favorite movies that combines teen comedy and espionage.

WarGames is a perfectly fine little gem of a thriller. Well...not exactly a thriller, but it gets rather exciting at the end. Great performance by a young Matthew Broderick as the protagonist, John Wood as the "wacky professor", and Ally Sheedy as the "love" interest. The story is even more relevant today than back in the cold war...WHEN will technology make us extinct?!?

Should be viewed and collected by everyone!!

Just simply a classic. The technology depicted has definitely not aged well, but the base story is still working. Watch the movie with the eyes of the time, when computers and networking were still very basic compared to today.
A hacker triggers an AI unintentionnaly to start a nuclear war. Applicable to today with AI becoming ever more capable and humans ever more willing to leave the thinking to AI.

Classic. Must watch. 4K release is terrific.

Snowden, how do you like them apples?

Wargames was a movie that was way ahead of its time and remains one of the most important films ever made.

‘WarGames’ is an 80s classic that delves into ideas that were fairly original for the decade in question. A high-school underachiever and hacker, David (Matthew Broderick), attempts to hack into a game company. In his exploit hunt, he connects to a mysterious system that lists him multiple games. He chooses “Global Thermonuclear War” to impress his crush, Jennifer (Ally Sheedy). Instead, he ends up penetrating the mainframe of a nuclear facility. It lands him in a world of trouble and sets off a countdown to World War 3 between the USA and the Soviet Union.

The acting, set design, editing, and cinematography were excellent and always entertaining. The film, unfortunately, has not aged well from a visual and filming perspective, but the ideas were well ahead of its time. Very few people in the ‘80s were thinking about self-aware artificial intelligence, computer hacking, networks, encryption, firewalls, and using a voice synthesizer to hack a keypad. The average computers back then were rudimentary and not even as powerful as a Gameboy Advance, which every kid in the mid-2000s was rocking (including me). The most powerful supercomputers from the 80s would be a laughingstock next to an early 2000s computer. A basic smartphone from 2010 would run circles around multi-billion dollar supercomputers of the 80s. It's crazy how quickly technology develops. While it’s still an interesting film to think about, there are issues. It’s unrealistic that NORAD would have such weak security, allowing someone to log in with just a name and no further authentication. That’s silly. It’s also nonsensical to think there would be an advanced A.I. in the 80s with such basic technology. The final ending scenes were also preposterous, with the “happily ever after” ending. The technology is realistic in concept with an advanced A.I. capable of hijacking systems, including a nuclear facility (as depicted in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning). However, A.I. is not there yet. Unless the military has had a top-secret A.I. that is beyond the capabilities currently documented, I think we are still another decade away from true self-thinking AI, making this film 50 years ahead of its time.

Would I recommend this? It’s not a must-watch film, but I enjoyed it. I think the plot is fun and keeps you wondering what is coming next. If I was a young adult or teenager in 1983 watching this, ‘WarGames’ would blow my mind. Today in 2024, not so much. For an 80s film, I thought it was very good.

It’s a good film, characters were a bit tacky though.

The basic premise of "WarGames", to let a computer or an AI decide about the nuclear arsenal of the US, is in many ways frighteningly timely. In its actual implementation, however, the film has aged rather poorly. Above all, the hacking and technology used don't necessarily seem like they even come close to reality. Also, not a single one of the human characters in authority roles behaves like a human with a functioning brain. On top of that, there are a few lengths to the film, especially in the first half. After that, however, the pace picks up nicely until the thrilling finale, and fortunately, the plot becomes more interesting as well.

The performances from the actors are mixed, but no one bothered me too much. Matthew Broderick sounds a bit odd at times but does okay overall. Ally Sheedy's character, meanwhile, is written rather weirdly in places, but her charisma won me over in the end. Other than that, the film also boasts some solid camerawork overall and some nice effects. If you can overlook one or two weaknesses in the presented technology, then "WarGames" is still quite recommendable nowadays.