I just finished watching WarGames: The Dead Code. This is the direct to DVD (at least I think it was) sequal to the geek-cult classic WarGames. There is both good and bad in this movie, but I think the good makes the bad that much worse.
The general plot of the movie is even more far fetched that I would have expected going in. The government designed this online game that is difficult and specific enough that if you do well, you are probably a terrorist threat. So it earmarks you and starts running a trace of all your known associates building a six degrees of kevin bacon style list to known terrorists cells. Genius. This computer also has full access to all the power grids, gas pipes, communications (except apparently cell phones), of course, all of the military, and is capable of launching nuclear warheads. The computer also has some form of free thinking which at times they demonstrate as malign. Anyways, that is the computer, her name is Ripley.
Will Farmer is the main character, and of course, he is good with computers. His mom works in a company similar to SC Johnson, ie, with everyday chemicals. His neighbor is a foreign guy who is bad with computers and whose brother uses his account to filter money he gets through illicit means (but not terrorist stuff). Will's best friend convinces him to use some of the illicit money to make a wager on this cool new gaming site...wait for it...Ripley. I am sure you already have the rest put together. Will does awesome in the game, two of his closest links are a foreign guy getting illegal money from criminals and his chemist mom. There is also a girl, who was hot, and who could deliver her lines, but the lines made her character kind of lame. For instance, Will mentions he hacked into the FBI, CIA, and a few other federal agencies (all done on his laptop, on a place, while she is sitting next to him) and she asks him why. Later he turns on open wifi at a cyber cafe from the admin computer while she distracts the barrista, then she freaks out because he is a good with computers.
So yeah, um, Dr. Stephen Falken supposedly killed himself, but he has really been in hiding, Joshua (as in the big super computer from the first movie) now regulates power for a power company. These two reflected nothing of how they were in the first movie. They get blown up, and Will and the hot girl get captured. The rest of the movie is pretty much the end of the first one only instead of it being Joshua against himself, it is Ripley against Joshua (which of course makes sense because Falken emailed Joshua...).
The most rewarding scene is after the whole ticking clock thing is over, Ripley utters the same words Joshua said in the first movie, which also happens to be my title.
