Blackhat

Released 8th January 2015, Blackhat follows hacker Nick as he is let out of prison to aid the FBI against a growing terrorist threat. In the traditional sense, this is a spy film; characters are out to defeat the bad guy, there are gratuitous action scenes and a romantic subplot. To start, with the exception of the final two, none of the action scenes are necessary to the plot and come out of no-where. The direction is a mixed bag; on one hand there is some really interesting imagery used to detail the technical presence in the film. On the other hand, the cinematography is often without purpose and often uses a shaky camera which does nothing but make the audience feel dizzy.

The characters are horribly written with the ‘strongest’ being mediocre at best. In that regard, Viola Davis gives a decent performance and is the only character with a natural ‘arc’. However, several obnoxious dialogue choices really break the naturalism which subsequently renders her character as mediocre. Everyone else is clearly trying with what they are given but Chris Hemsworth is fine, Tang Wei is fine, Wang Leehom is fine, etc. The film attempts to make a love plot between Hemsworth’s Nick and Wei’s Chen the emotional crux of the narrative. However, the writing makes it come out of left field with minimal build-up; the main problem is that the characters have no personality which subsequently leaves the audience un-invested and bored through the two hour + runtime. Therefore any ‘emotion’ tied up with this narrative feels lifeless and bland.

The soundtrack is possibly one of the worst I have ever heard too. It feels very royalty free and basic which would normally make it passable, assuming the score was used to elicit appropriate emotions. Combined with the lack of personality in the script, the soundtrack often gives different messages to, what little, the film is already communicating. The visual effects, for the two sequences they are used, are passable and actually contribute to one of the only good scenes in the film. Overall this film lacks personality in almost every sector and leaves you bored by the fifteen minute mark.