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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (45) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (15) | Rotten (30) | DVD (4)
Hackers isn't a very good movie, but it's a darn sight more fun than The Net.
After the mechanics of the thriller plot start to kick in, the film drags. And when it's time for the big cyber-showdown, we're stuck, once again, with footage of frantic typing.
This is a movie that sums up the worst of the computer era: zapping you with techno-cliches and trapping you in constant visual crash and burn.
The story is negligible, but it offers the same order of fun as a good rock video: the marriage of images and music.
What's most grating about Hackers, however, is the guileless way the movie buys in to the computer-kid-as-elite-rebel mystique currently being peddled by magazines like Wired.
Without being any sort of miracle, this engaging and lively exploitation fantasy-thriller about computer hackers, anarchistic in spirit, succeeds at just about everything The Net failed to.
One may criticise Hackers for being unreal, ridiculous or just too cheesy, but it stands as one of the most underrated gems to have come out of the 1990s. The performances are vibrant, the storytelling is kinetic and the visuals are something to behold.
Cutting-edge ideas can't quite compensate for a banal storyline.
Rarely do movies try-and fail-as hard to be cool as Hackers.
An onslaught of lame plotting, dopey writing and cornball histrionics.
The real crime of cyberpunks is that they have encouraged Hollywood to make several bad movies aimed at exploiting this new lifestyle niche.
A disjointed yet generally enjoyable stint at the movies, even for those who don't know an infobahn from a nanosecond.
Despite having a number of now-famous actors in it, Hackers is one of their earlier films and the acting is -- well, a hack job. Despite the bad makeup, there is nothing one can do to make a group of young twenty-somethings pass for 16 and 17 year old high school students -- nor did I see the point of setting the film in a high school. University students would have been more credible. The story is a bit stupid and it relies on an early home-PC audience not being very sophisticated in technology matters. (Some viewers may find this aspect of the film both nostalgic and hilarious -- who am I to judge?) Costumes were puzzling and distracting in their "edginess". (If that was even the goal?) The film is from 1995, but it had the 80's trash studio junk vibe. Still, it's a marginally fun movie that could be worth watching if you have nothing better to do or you're feeling too lazy to change the channel.
Super Reviewer
Hackers is hi-LAR-ious because of the way it portrays the Internet. The hacking duels between Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie are at once ridiculous and kinda sexy. A LOT of fun.
Attempted glamorisation of New York teen hackers fighting corporate greed comes off as a bit too cheeky. All racial stereotypes are represented though ...
I can objectively say that Hackers is a badly-dated, ridiculous piece of crap that's pure camp to anyone that's ever used a computer. BUT... I had fun watching it. Most of the characters were ridiculous and between Fisher Stevens' egotistical geek and Lorraine Bracco's Jewish mother impression in the last 15 minutes "Rabbit, Flu-Shot, someone talk to me!" I couldn't keep it together. At the same time, Angelina Jolie's Romulan look worked even if Matthew Lillard made me want to commit murder. Nothing serious or even good but Hackers is highly entertaining.
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