Review of Wargames

Introduction

Horror movies don`t scare me. Not even a little. Oh, sure, I may be startled, and occasionally shocked, but I won`t be having trouble sleeping at night. For a decent fright, nuclear Armageddon always does it for me. The imminent destruction of the world at the hands of its inhabitants is far scarier than any amount of blood and gore. The first time I saw the Planets of the Apes sequel, where Taylor pushes the button that destroys the Earth, I didn`t sleep. I guess it all comes from being a child of the eighties. Born and brought up during the height of the cold war, the threat of nuclear holocaust was a real and tangible one. With militant Reagan espousing SDI and nuclear proliferation on one side, and the evil communist menace of Brezhnev on the other, there was a time where I realistically didn`t expect to see the year 2000. I wasn`t born until long after the Bay of Pigs Crisis, and `duck and cover` but I was there for the post apocalyptic dramas of the eighties, the government information films advising us to build nuclear shelters in our cellars, using bricks and a strategically placed door, as if that would stop a multi-megaton blast. I also had the poster that listed important things to do in case of a nuclear attack. The last item being; remove all jewellery, watches, glasses and all other sharp items, place head between knees and kiss arse goodbye. Thinking back, it`s hard to explain the dread and sense of inevitable doom that affected the cold war culture. It wasn`t a case of if, but when the world would end in a nuclear firestorm. If you could ever say that one man saved the world, then Mikhail Gorbachev was that man. With his policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, he brought the world back from the brink. Yet curiously as I look back, I approach the cold war years almost with a sense of nostalgia. Back then, you knew who the good and bad guys were, and in an insane world the idea if Mutually Assured Destruction was an effective deterrent. Today it`s a different ballgame and with the world fractured and divided as never before, I felt safer under the nuclear umbrella. Wargames was film that perfectly caught the mood of the era and watching it now, almost twenty years later, it`s easy for me to get caught up in the nostalgia and relive the hysteria that I grew up with. It may seem farfetched now, but there has always been a story that World War III was almost started by a flock of migrating geese. If there is a hint of truth to that, then this film becomes even more plausible.

David Lightman is your typical teenager, growing up in Seattle. He is a bit of a smart aleck, still a little shy around girls, rebels in the presence of authority figures, in short a typical teenager. However, his pale demeanour can be explained by his obsessive computer hacking. His room is an explosion of computer equipment, and through a little theft of Ma Bell`s resources, he spends his free time getting into games companies to steal their games. When he and a classmate, Jennifer Mack, fail biology, he hacks into the school computer to change their grades and also to impress Jennifer. When he tries to hack into Protovision to steal their games, he comes across a strange login prompt. After some research, he figures out a password and finds an interesting games computer, Joshua. Joshua offers the chance to play Global Thermonuclear War and David can`t resist. As the Soviet Union, he and Jennifer launch missiles at Las Vegas and Seattle. Meanwhile at NORAD, the nation`s military goes on alert when a limited nuclear strike by Russia is detected. Gearing up for a response, the military is halted when the computer techs burst in claiming it was just a simulation being run on the WOPR. Someone had hacked in from the outside. David is alerted to this when he sees the alert reported on the news. He vows not to dial number again, but Joshua/WOPR still wants to play and dials David`s computer up. Joshua estimates that the game will be complete in 52 hours, but cannot tell the difference between the game and reality. David and Jennifer have that long to prevent the end of the world.

Video

Wargames is presented in a 1.85:1 letterbox transfer. This is probably the best non-anamorphic transfer I have seen. The image is impressively sharp and well defined, considering the lack of resolution. There is also very little sign of age, you would probably need a magnifying glass to see any scratches or blips. John Badham directs well, and the film is well paced. He observes the interactions of the characters well and keeps an eye on the narrative. I like the nice touch where he has the faces of his protagonists reflected in the computer screen so you can see their reactions to what happens on screen as it happens.

Audio

Wargames comes with a DD 5.1 English soundtrack. Other languages are catered for in Mono, those being, French, German, Italian and Spanish. The sound is quite good. It isn`t an action film, but more dialogue driven, but the 5.1 track is put to good use. The bass really rumbles when Joshua is cogitating. The music by Arthur B. Rubenstein is very eighties, with lots of computery beeps and plinks punctuating an orchestrated score. It suits the film well.

Features

This disc doesn`t have many extras, but what it does have are well chosen. As well as the theatrical trailer, there is a booklet containing production notes and feature length commentary in 2.0 Stereo with the director John Badham and writers, Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes. The booklet is well worth a read and the commentary is on of the best I have heard. Not only is it informative and well thought out, it is gripping and you`ll find it hard to turn it off. Wargames was a fairly low budget film and it`s worth hearing how the final film was realised. One thing I must mention, with this being a non-anamorphic film, the subtitles are worthless for those owning a 16:9 set.

Conclusion

Matthew Broderick is David Lightman and he is brilliant as the teenage computer whiz. It looks like he didn`t see sunlight for a month. Ally Sheedy plays Jennifer Mack and she works well with Broderick. Their relationship as it develops in the film is honest and refreshing and works well to develop the characters. Dabney Coleman is McKittrick, the chief computer bod at NORAD, who is trying to sell his `baby` to the military and has to respond when David breaks into the system. John Wood is Joshua`s father, and his world-weary cynic in the face of Armageddon is thought provoking. Barry Corbin is excellent as General Beringer, the head of NORAD who distrusts technology.

I like this film a lot. It`s an excellent story told extremely well, with believable and involving characters. You really empathise with the tension and fear as the world counts down to obliteration and the relief is palpable too. I also like the nostalgia aspect. Galaga was one of my favourite games when I was a kid. I also loved the ancient computing equipment. The genuinely floppy discs, the chunky modems. Of course 20 years on, we still don`t have artificial intelligence to rival Joshua, but other than that piece of fiction, the technology represented here is quite genuine and authentic. It`s hard to believe that a whole generation has grown up without a senile president poised over a big red button, but if you want to have a gentle education in the cold war standoff and nuclear threat, the Wargames is as good as entry as any. It is a great little film.