The Net 2.0 (2006)

That was an excellent one.

Sadly Over-hyped

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.

I have only seen a few minutes of the original 1995 "The Net" movie, so I can't fairly say whether this direct to DVD sequel is better or worse than the original. I can only judge it on its own terms, and with that way this ends up being a pretty poor effort. I admit that the Turkish settings occasionally give the movie a fairly colourful backdrop, but all the same more often than not the movie has a really cheap feeling. The movie possibly could have succeeded despite that shortcoming, but the direction and the script work together to sink the entire enterprise. The movie feels sluggish and slow - it takes forever for the movie to really get going, and even when it does, there is no bite to any scene. No tension or excitement, even during the (poorly directed) action sequences. But even worse than the weak direction is the screenplay. Even if you are not an expert on computers and the Internet, there are many scenes with technology that are so obviously improbable that you'll groan out loud. The heroine also commits a lot of non-technological actions that are just as stupid. In the end, the only real interest the movie has apart from its colorful backdrop is bringing up the question as to why it managed to get an "R" rating from the MPAA; the content of the movie deserves a PG-13 at most.

In all honesty, I rarely have seen such a lousy sequel. The story ? It's exactly - word by word - the same as the first one. The actors ? None of them are actually known by human beings. And trust me, that's one hell of a good thing. I'd say this movie suffers from the "Final Destination" syndrome. The first one had a cool story, cool acting and was kind of funny as it was totally unbelievable. The second one had the very same story, lame actors but was still funny as even harder to believe. The third one was a complete piece of crap, as we'd have seen the deaths a hundred times anywhere else, and we could already answer all the plots ourselves. To resume : same scenario, stupid-looking actors, lame acting. And hey well. That would just be another lame movie BUT ! Here we are : the director is the son of The Net 1's director. Who apparently does not know that freeze-framing every 5 seconds and fast-forwarding every 10 is INCREDIBLY annoying. If you liked The Net, don't, for any reason on Earth, watch The Net 2.0.

Had I not been sick and bored with everything else on my cable TV, I wouldn't have bothered watching The Net 2.0 .This is the only movie I've ever seen that has inspired me to see what other people on the net thought about how incredibly terrible it really was. I even registered at IMDb just for the purpose of expressing my disgust at this film. Although I do have to say I'm particularly amused at the comments above praising the film. It's almost like the director and/or the actors have logged in to talk up this piece of tripe.Intro : My name is Hope. I'm an orphan. I like telling jokes about my name and its literal meaning. Did I mention my name is Hope? It is. Hope. I hope you know that my name is Hope.Cut to the first of many ridiculous takes on computer security as we see Hope and her douche boyfriend having an argument after she rids his MS laptop of a virus by typing random messages overheard in a bar near a programming office into a GUI while the virus gives her a countdown of how long it will take before his laptop is infected (or blows up, I couldn't tell).The break down of this is that she's going to Turkey to work as a computer security expert for some people she's never heard of. After losing all of her money on her flight to Turkey via her tablet pc that conveniently counted down her funds before stripping her bare, she arrives with the wrong type of visa, then gets paranoid at the drop of a hat and proceeds to tell her story to the first American woman she sees, a woman who consequently steals her identity using Hope's aforementioned story.Cue her going to a job with a "Super-computer" that is completely graphically driven and shows every transaction happening at a major bank in real-time as pop-ups, complete with location and amount. I won't even touch on the laser "security grid".Then watch as she gets in a car chase, which she concludes by dropping an LPG tank that was rattling around in the back of her stolen truck in front a Mercedes that promptly blows up on impact with said tank. The writing for this scene goes like this : "I hope this works". Pulls lever in cab. Tank drops in front of Merc. Tank blows up. Hope pumps her fist and says "Yes!" Weak.In the end, it was all a con job by the Russian Mafia and her douche boyfriend to get her to steal money for them which she ends up with at the end after faking her own death in an anti-climactic scene involving the douche and his co-conspirator, the psychologist.So basically, if it wasn't for the acting, the direction, the script and the production values, this might have made a good ad for MSoft products and Istanbul.Give it a miss, or have a laugh at this tragic, train-wreck of a movie.One star, but only because I can't rate it any lower.

The conclusion is simple, watch this promo film for Turkey with a slight story, and all clichés will pass one by one.The chases are not state of the art. A small car chase with no surprises, some running, some more running.The flash backs and flash forwards started to annoy me, just as the characters and their roles which weren't a surprise at the end.Sandra Bullock's trailer was on the DVD as well, and I have to say: watch the Net trailer for even more action and entertainment.Not too bad for a B-movie, don't expect anything new or refreshing. IT people like myself will of course see through the technical terms, but who'll watch for that purpose ;)