MovieChat Forums > Antitrust (2001) Discussion > My review (lame 'Hackers' ripoff)

My review (lame 'Hackers' ripoff)

posted 20 years ago by Howlin Wolf
3 replies | jump to latest

Made for 'geeks' - the irony being that it's not intelligent enough for them!

Jargon, Jargon, blah... lifestyle change... blah... 'alienation/disillusionment'... blah... 'Gen X'... blah...

I could easily go on; this is 'identikit to its very core - so much so I'm convinced that there must be a program lurking somewhere specifically concerned with how to make movies as formulaic as this!

Philippe is the 'hero', which on reflection is ideal because he's the perfect 'blank canvas' for an endeavour so nondescript. His idea of 'urgent' acting seems from this to be: TALK-VERY-FAST! Robbins takes a bow as the villain to give the project nothing more than it deserves - a hammy performance. Even the director seems to run out of ideas halfway through, overusing close-ups to inject a false sense of urgency.

It's very sad that the closest it comes to achieving its ambitions is playing like a teenybopper version of "The Firm", when it's perhaps easier to stake a claim for it being a mild ripoff of "Hackers". How desperate do you have to be to find yourself plagurising a film that wasn't all that 'seminal' in the first place?!
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Any comments?

Howlin Wolf (TM)

I said "Always" because 'True love never dies'.

[–] neil_tiffany 20 years ago

i must admit i didnt see all of this film. But i did catch the end. I was sat there watching it when some hacker guys start broadcasting a message all over the world telling people about the evil plot the lead bad guy had (not thrased well but you know what i mean). I couldnt believe it, exactly the same as hackers (a film i happen to like). Id seen the trailers and thought it could have been a good film, but when i saw the end i thought, thats a bit lazy.
Nice to see it wasnt just me that noticed it.

[–] Howlin Wolf 20 years ago

... it wouldn't even have mattered all that much had AntiTrust been a good 'copy' of it; unfortunately it wasn't!

What kind of a world is this where a man dressed as a bat gets ALL MY PRESS?

[–] Benihanahasnofunflare 9 years ago

I found it quite moving.