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Set within the world of global cybercrime, Legendary's "blackhat" follows a furloughed convict and his American and Chinese partners as they hunt a high-level cybercrime network from Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta.Directed by Michael Mann
Written by Michael Mann and Morgan Davis Foehl
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Tang Wei, Wang Leehom, and John Ortiz
Release Date - January 16, 2015
Wow, what a shame. When I first heard about this project, I thought this was going to be great. That trailer looks overtly dumb.
This looks like classic Michael Mann. All the elements seem to be present and that Hemsworth guy look like a perfect Mann leading man. Can't wait.
I'm optimistic this is going to be sick, or at least a step in a new direction while still holding on to Mann's original themes. Public Enemies may have been a retread of Heat territory, and a kind of Peckinpah narrative with Dillinger outliving the time he fit right into, but this looks more directly like the world as it's changed today necessitating a new Mann storyline. Vice had Crockett navigating a world in transition and flux, here it looks like it's about a character with ego now having little hope of maintaining the autonomy he craves in a landscape broken from the history he knew. Old world constructions as symbols of the dying old reality even though they're from the not-too-distant-past, buildings as literal shells of the old stasis — a global graveyard barren of tangible touchstones.
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Excerpts from
Matt Zoller Seitz's review (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blackhat-2015)Quote from: Matt Zoller Seitz"Blackhat" is an odd, fascinating movie: a high-tech action thriller about the human condition. I can think of no better current illustration of the notion that, to quote this site's founder, it's not what a movie is about, it's how it's about it.
The world of ones and zeros that the "The Matrix" showed us 15 years ago is no longer fanciful. "Blackhat" is mainly about what happens when the real world is annexed by the virtual: what it does to geography and relationships; how it signal-jams our species' sense of time as a series of self-contained moments, and substitutes an existence that can feel like an endless, intrusive buzz.
The movie is a sound and light show, first and foremost, but it's also a sneaky eulogy for a dying way of living and seeing: rage, rage against the dying of the real! The filmmaking prods you to contemplate the physicality, the tangibility, of what's onscreen—to think about actions as actions, people as people, things as things. Sunlight and streetlamps are searingly bright, gunshots are deafening, landscapes and skylines awesomely vast. When men grapple in a cramped diner and someone's head smashes against a table, or when Hathaway repeatedly slams the flat end of an axe-head against a metal screen, or when bullets rip through a cargo container or a screwdriver plunges into a man's neck, you flinch, not just because the sound effects are loud and the camerawork tactically "messy," but because these primordial actions are contrasted against the electronic violence carried out by unseen cyber-criminals. The bad guys don't directly assault existing facilities, organizations and institutions; they undermine or confuse them until they implode, bringing in gunmen only when absolutely necessary.
this is an amazing film. the bar is set high for the new year. this review nails it.
http://reverseshot.org/reviews/entry/1989/blackhat
First huge flop of the year. No idea if the film is any good but reviews are 31% on RottenTomatoes and the trailers are just awful.
I will probably see it on TV.
I agree with both samsong and Kal, based on my feelings about this movie without having seen it, and I even missed it on Redbox, but its blu-ray price is dropping fast, I'mma wait for its price to drop rock bottom, i.e. this is a movie I'm apparently excited about to the degree that I want to own it at a marginal price.
Once again, jenkins, you make zero sense.
I haven't seen the movie yet either, but my intuition kicked in when I saw the trailer. I didn't think the subject would be handled right, and let's face it, can anyone take Hemsworth seriously?
This movie has loads of problems, nonetheless it struck a chord with me and I enjoyed it. Some of the performances and dialogue are off. The lead is miscast. And yet it's got some vibes and cinematic moments that most movies could never dream of. Basically i'd rather see Mann's worst film (and I'm not saying that's what this is) than a lot of director's best film.
Quote from: Pwaybloe on June 17, 2015, 06:38:46 PM
Once again, jenkins, you make zero sense.
I haven't seen the movie yet either, but my intuition kicked in when I saw the trailer. I didn't think the subject would be handled right, and let's face it, can anyone take Hemsworth seriously?
Bless ya. I'm all about following intuition, exactly like The Babe tells Benny The Jet in
The Sandlot -- follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong.
But I'm a movie person, and my intuition for a movie isn't lifted from the trailer, the plotline, or the actor. The matter of my intuition, as a movie person, is between me and the movie. The full movie. Now, Blackhat bombed (as Kal mentioned) but some people have actually found the movie wonderful (e.g. samsong), and I watch movies either in the theater or through discs, because I rarely stream and I've only torrented for Queen (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3322420/), so when the home market price of this movie hits rockbottom, that's a fucking shining jewel on the ground for a guy like me. I can make a cheap gamble on a great director. For example this worked with Stone's
W., Soderbergh's
The Informant! and recently Chan-wook's
Stoker.
So that's my level.
I gave it a shot and for a while (around 15 minutes) I felt the bad reviews were just missing the boat. What an opening this film has. Truly remarkable stuff, and I would say just for that opening the film is worthy.
It's also immaculately shot and full of beautiful, exciting and different imagery. Mann is so gifted and so in control of the medium, he makes every visual solution feel fresh. I absolutely don't get the hate towards his digital cinematography. The film is better because of it.
There are, however, some serious problems here. The main one is so obvious you wonder how in hell no one stopped it from happening. This is a major miscast. Perhaps the worst I've ever seen. It's impossible to believe Hermsworth as any kind of hacker, no matter how much the film insists in telling us so. It becomes a distraction, along with the mannered machismo that has contaminated Mann's heroes since Miami Vice. My mind kept wandering to all the great actors Mann has worked with who would actually be a better, inspired choice for this role: Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell, Mark Ruffalo, Christian Bale even...Hermsworth looks like he's barely able to use whatsapp.
The absolute lack of any sense of humor (last time there was some of that in a Mann film was in Collateral) buries the film in a mud of seriousness and tedium. By the hour I just didn't care anymore about anything that was going on and I was ready to leave. There were some nice action sequences here and there, and many technical bravura moments, but nothing could compensate the initial mistake...