This was one of my most anticipated movies ever since I found out who the cast were. I didn't know if it would be any good though but I was kind of wrong.
Michael Mann chose to give his audience some insights into the inner workings inside computers, from the very beginning of the movie and also a couple more times in the middle.
And in true Mann fashion, the sound effects of the surrounding sometimes were overpowering; but that's his style because Mann really emphasise on the surroundings to give a more realistic experience when watching his movies.
So that's why in one scene which I found jarring, was when Chris Hemsworth's character - a hacker who has been locked up for most of his adult life - was given lines to make him seemed more knowledgeable than he should have been. In this sense was when Viola Davis' character, an FBI agent, wanted to interrogate a suspect but was pooh-poohed by Hemsworth who said the suspect wouldn't crack because of his background.
There should have been some attention to detail in this sort of dialogue exchange even though Hemsworth was the lead. And in this case, it really took me out of the movie.
When I first heard about this movie, I thought Hemsworth was completely the wrong choice to play a hacker because I don't know in what world does Mann live in where Hackers have the body of Thor. And I thought this fact would stand out like a sore thumb.
But Hemsworth is legit when it comes to acting. I didn't feel it at all (until he took his shirt off and that happened quite a few times). The only thing inconsistent was his American accent. At first I thought he was going for a Bostonian accent (I'm really not the best judge of this) but then I noticed (even when I'm not the best judge of this) that his accent went in and out quite a bit.
And speaking of speaking, Tang Wei's English was sometimes incoherent, but mostly alright. However, it's her acting that was badly affected due to the language difficulties. In the first half she tended to overact, but Tang being a very competent actor, brought it home when heavy emotions were called for.
As for Wang Leehom, this is the most natural I've ever seen him, and that's probably because he's more comfortable in English than in Mandarin.
Again, I don't know what it is, but some of the Chinese were dubbed into a different dialect. Only in a few scenes though, but the very funny thing was that both Cantonese and Mandarin were used; so I really don't know why the dub.
Mann struck gold in the middle action portion. The cinema was completely silent as everyone's attention was focused on the screen. At that point, I thought, this movie might just score really high with me. But then, when the movie didn't feel like it was close to ending, I thought Mann was facing a huge challenge to end it even better.
And he failed to. The last scenes were horrible and completely unrealistic. It's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 all over again where people did not know how to run from someone brandishing a gun in their face. It's just crazy how Mann decided to finish the movie.
I was qutie disappointed there to what otherwise would have been a very, very strong movie with great acting. Not forgetting Viola Davis as well who was much better than my impression from the trailers.
I also caught a couple of Avengers nuggets so I'm guessing Mann is a fan.
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