Director John Badham
Starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy & John Wood
Rated PG
Score 6/6

A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III.

First things first, when i sat down to watch WarGames, Ally Sheedy’s line about 41 being old hurt my ego. Cue the laughing of my parents. Secondly yes I do have plans to revisit the follow up to the 1983 classic Stuart Gillard’s 2008 movie Wargames: The Dead Code (though it has been more than a few years since I last watched The Dead Code it is something of a faux sequel). With the rise of things like Artificial Intelligence and the perils of fake news and the damage it can cause on society (considering the financial loss something like a fake tweet can cause a company), taking the time to look at movies like Wargames and what they have to say is kind of important especially to avoid a potential ‘Skynet’ situation, especially with the growing popularity of AI Chatbots.
Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy were great together as David and Jennifer. I loved the charming quality that Sheedy brought to the role because I enjoyed listening to her dialogue. I also loved Eddie Deezen’s performance as Melvin. It should be noted that supposedly Wargames contains the first cinematic reference to a “firewall”. John Wood was great as Falken, I loved his speech about how ‘nature knows when to give up’. I was a little surprised when I released that James Tolkan was cast in this (other people might remember him as Mr. Strickland from Back to The Future). As dated as Wargames comes across in places I loved the final third of the movie, particularly the Tic Tac Toe sequence and the lighting from the main monitor.