Delete (2013)

It is a performances centric movie

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

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.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It would be very good series (close to 8) if only the ending would be something more interesting and not so lame. Basically when I saw this series starting from the middle of first episode (on the 20th minute), I got immediately hooked. It was interesting and acting and dialogue was good. But last 10 minutes of 2nd episode ruined whole thing. Problem was in script. Actors did job very well and I also liked camera work, lens flares and deep depth of field in visuals. It felt like someone else had written the ending of script in hurry. Because of the ending it deserves its below 6 rating. Its sad because 95% of the series was worth rating of 8.

Delete captivates the viewer throughout both episodes, leading to a satisfying finale. Through busy action scenes, car chases, and tense hacking scenes, the series delivers a compelling plot, not too far-fetched for hard sci-fi fans.The series centres around a young hacker (Daniel) who spends his spare time on "ethical" hacking projects such as hacking phone records for justice; a modern-day digital vigilanti of sorts. In what seems like coincidence, Daniel meets reporter Jesse White, becoming a prime suspect for what the U.S government at first labels a "cyber- terrorism" act due to his limited ties to a notorious ethical hacking group called "Devito" (the modern-day equivalent to "Anonymous"). A frivolous struggle ensues when Daniel and Jesse discover that members of the Devito group are being murdered one by one. Soon after, Daniel and the reporter discover that an AI (artificial intelligence) has been orchestrating the terrorist attacks for which Devito had formerly been accused.The first episode explores the origins of the AI, Devito, and the government's initial reaction to the AI threat; the second episode captures the government's continued efforts to contain the AI and Daniel, Jesse, and Max Hollis (the detective).Delete explores engaging ethical questions and political situations which captivate the viewer throughout. Beginning with the "mechanical failure" of the nuclear power plant, we follow the U.S government throughout their political discussions and deliberations on how to act. These political discussions lead up to panicked, rash decisions made by the US government. Delete showcases how, under pressure, or the right circumstances, governments make rash, ungrounded decisions.Camera work consists largely of close-up perspectives, and appears mostly professional; at times, camera work can appear "jerky" due to some odd angles. Overall, the camera work adds to keep the viewer engaged throughout.Music is spot-on. The music provides an tense, ambient, "Sci-fi" feel which adds to the tenseness of the film. At times, the music evokes the same "grungy" sound heard in artists like Trent Reznor. The music succeeds in that even though, at times, there is a subtle beat, it only adds to the film, and you tend to not notice it.Hard sci-fi fans will rejoice in that Delete delivers for the most part when it comes to accuracy; not long ago, Stephen Hawking along with several well-known scholars called for a truce on the "War on Artificial Intelligence", claiming that the war is not 5 or 10 years away, but 2-3 years away. Viewers having some preliminary knowledge on the data gathered by government agencies such as NASA and agencies in the UK specifically, exposed in the revelations of Edward Snowden, a global, will agree that such an omniscient AI is well within the realm of possibility. Even looking to today's cryptocurrencies or new "Web 2.0" platforms such as Ethereum (launched just last week), an AI could very well use a derived implementation of the blockchain technology to collectively exist on every machine (in "clusters"). Decryption scenes are, for the most part, accurate, in that hackers will often attempt various word lists in attempting to crack a password by brute force; decrypting ASCII does not seem realistic, however.Unfortunately, Delete does contain some technically impossible scenes such as a phone "overcharging" -- this would not be possible unless the phone supported wireless charging, and such charging occurs at speeds close to 10x less than normal charging speeds anyway even with today's technology; more likely, the phone was overclocked and forced to compute some CPU-intensive operations, but even then, the phone would turn off first due to the way motherboards are manufactured -- and a "datalink" in which Daniel supposedly "interfaces" with the AI, and virtually confronts the AI on several occasions. Finally, some short shots of Daniel, Jesse, and Max in their old car don't make sense when the car would obviously not have any cameras within it.I must digress, though, as most non-hard sci-fi viewers will concede disbelief, and enjoy this masterpiece of sci-fi.I would highly recommend this short TV series for any sci-fi (and especially hard sci-fi) fan. Overall, the TV series delivers on all counts, and provides an engaging story line which keeps the viewer wondering just what the AI will do next. The story line is clearly well-thought-out, and shows an understanding of the way ubiquitous technology integrates with everyday life, and how many of us rely heavily on its capabilities. Excellent work.

The overly presumptuous camera work made this almost impossible to watch. Waaaay too many Go-Pro shots (guys, just because you own them doesn't mean you have to attach them to EVERYTHING for a funky shaky POV), badly focused shots (yes, I'm guessing those were intentional however it just looked bad), EpileptiCam, bright light sources into the lens with washed out flares and dirty lens look.... I hope the DP got everything he needed for his reel and now will move on to a line of work more suited to his talents (maybe as a bagger at Ralph's) and leave his poor, suffering crew alone. The audio was also very uneven, especially in Mission Control. Blu Mankuma-group's radio mic (which he was on most of the time, for unknown reasons) always sounded awful, boxy, with no high end. Either a really cheap lav or very pooly placed. The best part of the whole mess was Seth Green. I didn't recognize him. His was the most convincing performance of all. Glad I didn't pay anything to see this poorly made piece of Canad-o-crap.

My Vote: I would have actually aimed for a 7, but since I find it so underrated, here comes the 8. Given the general low IMDb rating I was pleasantly surprised by the first shots, and the first dialogues that were.. more than decent. And it got better- negligible amount of cheesy, just 4 moments of "wtf- no one would do that in real life". There were some familiar actors, and some new to me, and they all played their parts well. Suspense, there was. Emotion there was not. It's not a must for a sci-fi to bring a tear to my eye, but maybe if you kill some characters or put sentimental music on the soundtrack, make sure I get to care about the moment? Just saying... All in all a very, very decent sci-fi. Maybe a bit too long. I confess, I watched it all in one piece, while it was meant as a miniseries, but I believe that in the end, after 2:40 h, I actually accumulated a total of some 40 minutes of watching fancy camera shots and coloured lines and dots swooshing by, the visual representation of the AI in action. While I initially enjoyed the innovative shots they got to be over-exploited and story-diluting. The length allowed for quite a few twists and turns, while the film did not fall into the trap of useless sub-plots (although, again, they could have told the story of the titanic, had they removed the useless AI animations). Scientifically feasible? I would say yes. I guess a Spontaneous Technological Singularity would not really be spontaneous. But if You put a good enough AI together with a virus able to create a botnet, You will at least get an AI with unlimited computing power. At this point, let me remind You that the Turner Test has been finally passed by an AI in 2014, and that in the last 7 years, some 60.000.000 PCs have been unknowingly been part of DISCOVERED botnets, and that any new smartphone has more speed and storage than the best supercomputer of 1990. So slowly, You can start adapting the question "Are there aliens among us?"