WarGames (1983)

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Crafty and resourceful teenage computer whiz David (a fine and likeable performance by Matthew Broderick) hacks into a top secret government super computer that has complete control of America's nuclear arsenal. David inadvertently sets in motion a series of escalating events that could possibly trigger a third world war. Director John Badham keeps the ingenious and absorbing story zipping along at a brisk pace, maintains a generally serious tone throughout, and adroitly builds a tremendous amount of nerve-rattling tension. The clever script by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes not only makes a valid and provocative point on how a nuclear war is an unwinnable proposition, but also delivers an equally sharp and incisive commentary on the potential perils inherent in mankind's foolhardy desire to abdicate certain heavy responsibilities to machines under the frail hope that they will handle them better than we can. Ally Sheedy provides sturdy support as David's sweet girlfriend Jennifer. Moreover, this film further benefits from a terrific cast of top character actors: Dabney Coleman as arrogant jerk McKittrick, John Wood as bitter recluse creator Falken, Barry Corbin as the excitable General Berringer, Dennis Lipscomb as the starchy Watson, James Tolkan as hardnosed fed Wigen, and Michael Ensign as Berringer's dutiful aide. Juanin Clay also makes a favorable impression as McKittrick's feisty assistant Pat Healy while Eddie Deezen and Maury Chaykin have funny bits as a pair of wildly contrasting computer geeks. Arthur B. Rubinstein's spirited score hits the stirring spot. William A. Fraker's slick cinematography gives this picture a pleasing polished look. An excellent nail-biter.

The left starts out showing their utter ignorance concerning nuclear weapons. First of all, the men who monitor the "button" do NOT use revolvers, very unlikely. Next, the mutually assured destruction that the left fears so much, is actually what kept us safe for all of these years after WWII. If the USA had done away with all nuclear weapons, Russia and China would now be in control of the entire world. That is a fact. The reason we don't need to fear is that Russian's and Chinese are too intelligent to believe that the would get away with using their arsenal, they would not. Therefore, this movie makes it clear, keeping and even increasing a nuclear arsenal is the best way to keep the lunatic Russians and Chinese from taking over the world. But lefties won't understand this, they are too filled with stupidity and lack the basic common sense necessary to resolve problems.

For Generation X, Matthew Broderick is the eternal James Joyce character of American film. Ferris Bueller's Day Off is, obviously, our Ulysses. In this same regard, WarGames is our equivalent of Finnegan's Wake, a caged meditation on the riverine forms of time and reality which flings the audience through fantastic voyages of understanding only to deposit them back at their starting point, not mildly discomfited.One of the simple joys of this movie is watching John Wood as Falken, the cloistered computer science genius who develops JOSHUA, the artificial intelligence software at the heart of the plot. Wood's Falken is endlessly interesting to watch as the understated guru the protagonist journeys to seek enlightenment from. Wood was a lifelong Shakespearean when he signed on to the film, and his presence is judiciously carmelizing to the story and the rest of the troupe. Dabney Coleman gives a supple performance as McKittrick. McK is an is-he or isn't-he near-villain, a character with a point of view presaging everything officially sticky and tricky about the ends- means world of drones, waterboarding, and extraordinary rendition we find ourselves in.Ally Sheedy is elliptically interesting to follow as the protag's buddy Jennifer. Barry Corbin is perfectly cast as the blustering NORAD general, Beringer, an anti-Falken and the personification of why AI might be a tool worth having.Which brings us to Broderick himself, playing the lead role of David Lightman. Broderick's invention of his character goes beyond the 'Playbill' conception of him; a young, bored, 'but brilliant' computer hacker. As brought on screen by Broderick, David is both naive and worldly, baffled and mesmeric, Quixotic and cautious, in other words, he is a 360 degree person, spun and sewn by the sheer chi of Broderick's actorly brio (and also restraint). In this way, for American movie- going children of a certain vintage, Broderick's portrayal of David Lightman is every bit as canonical to the patina of generational and nationalistic shared-identity as his Ferris Bueller would be.A final celluloid bontemp WarGames delivers is the tiny, early-on role played by an undiscovered Michael Madsen as a junior NORAD launch officer. "Turn your key, sir!" And we watch and hope those keys don't turn, so that Matthew Broderick, JOSHUA, and the the rest can race disaster down the full lengths of the necessity of human prudence before depositing us back to the place we start their frantic meditation at, a blank, darkened screen with a waiting cursor.

Seeing this again, 30 years later, I'm of two minds. There's still a lot to enjoy in this slightly Disney version of an end-of-the-world thriller. There's a lot of clever twists in the plot, some lovely performances, some real tension. But it also all feels a bit light and softened to make it more audience friendly. That was probably the right decision commercially, but maybe not artistically. If original director Martin Brest had been allowed to finish the film, with the somewhat darker original script I read back then, I wonder if this could have been a bit of a minor classic, in the family of great nuclear war films like Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe, instead of an entertaining, intelligent thrill ride. There are also, on reflection some big logic holes you could fly missiles through. But at the end of the day, I still enjoyed re-seeing it, smiling a good deal of the time.