Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his friend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.
WarGames is a landmark of early-80s tech paranoia that genuinely invented the mainstream pop-culture image of the teenage hacker stumbling into geopolitical catastrophe. Its Novelty is well above average: the premise was singular for its time and the film's tone—blending suburban teen comedy with Cold War dread—was entirely its own voice. The plot is clever and propulsive but leans on some convenient contrivances (the NORAD breach is a bit too easy) that keep it from being exceptional. Acting is solid across the board—Matthew Broderick is charming and Dabney Coleman credible—but no performance is truly remarkable. Cinematography is functional and competent genre work, nothing visually distinctive. The ending, with WOPR playing tic-tac-toe to learn the futility of nuclear war, is memorably clever but also somewhat tidy and pat given the stakes built up throughout.