Blackhat looked like a definite couple of hours of fun, but it turned out to be quite disappointing.
For starters, it's directed by Michael Mann, who has been behind films such as Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Collateral and Ali, and is widely regarded as one of the greats of modern Hollywood.
The cast is pretty impressive too: Viola Davis (The Help, How to Get Away with Murder) gives weight to any role, while Chris Hemsworth is both a fine actor – as he showed in Ron Howard's Rush – and a bankable bulk, thanks to his ongoing gig as Norse God Thor in a relentless range of Marvel movies.
Add in a plot that's pretty topical, about hackers who are causing mayhem with global implications, and you'd imagine all you'd need after that would be a decent script and the odd bit of gunplay.
Well, you'd be right, but that's the problem here: the script just doesn't deliver, and by the time the guns are out, it's too late. Blackhat fails to really get going until the action kicks in during the third act, then goes out a door marked 'DAFT' and ends up looking like a gunfight in a KLF video.
Anyway, dem bones: Hemsworth stars as an imprisoned hacker who's offered a get-out-of-jail card if he can nail whoever's responsible for causing havoc at a Chinese nuclear plant.
Filmed in Los Angeles, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Jakarta, it ticks a lot of location boxes, there's a good flow to the action in the third act, some great tech-related visuals (and some awful lo-tech ones), but, overall, Blackhat just doesn't engage very well and lacks plausibility.
There may be enough for some cinema-goers in terms of pace, visuals and gunplay, but we should expect more from those involved. They're certainly capable of producing something better than this.
John Byrne
