1.5 stars (out of four)
As soon as the end credits rolled for “Blackhat,” someone in the crowd shouted, “Boring!” Were it socially acceptable, many in the theater (me included) probably would have done the same much sooner.
What a murky, dull excuse for an action flick this is, a far cry from the crackling cyber-terrorism thriller suggested by the trailers. Of course, it’s worth noting that “Blackhat” comes from Chicago-native director Michael Mann, who, yes, made one of the all-time-great crime movies (“Heat”) but recently seems like he invested in 5-Hour Energy and wants his work (“Miami Vice,” “Public Enemies”) to require a caffeine boost to sit through.
Struggling to evoke brains while sporting an inconsistent American accent, normally reliable Chris Hemsworth stars as Hathaway, who looks like a model for Torso magazine but actually is an M.I.T.-educated hacker. His old pal Dawai (Leehom Wang) gets Hathaway released from prison to help the government figure out who tweaked a code the duo created years ago and used it to either blow up a Chinese power plant, mess with the price of soy or both. Why this means Hathaway also will serve as the muscle on the operation I have no idea, other than assuming F.B.I. officials (including Viola Davis) looked at this supposed genius and figured they may as well get some use out of all those hours he spent lifting.
Rather than becoming a complex, intellectually stimulating tale of international fear and technological warfare, the fun-free “Blackhat” mumbles its way to indifference, both literally (the sound mix is terrible) and figuratively (no one believes the love story between Hathaway and Dawai’s sister Lien [Wei Tang], please stop trying). The diabolical plan feels like something Sideshow Bob already attempted. Meanwhile, Mann seems to think he’s tackling some unexplored dimension of modern, hackable life. Yet first-time writer Morgan Davis Foehl’s script taps into paranoia and vulnerability more feebly than 1995’s Sandra Bullock-starring, watch-out-for-computers thriller “The Net,” and Mann’s depiction of information traveling through wires looks like a second-rate version of the path through the brain in “Fight Club.”
One shootout recalls the glory of the spectacular bank robbery sequence in “Heat.” Otherwise, from lame lines like “I’m doing the time; time isn’t doing me” to the sense that Hathaway and Lien aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are, the empty, fruitlessly confusing “Blackhat” likewise is about 20 times less cool than it should be.
Watch Matt review the week’s big new movies Fridays at 11:30 a.m. on NBC.
mpais@tribune.com
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