1h 47m / PG-13 / Crime Drama

Making art about the future is dangerous because the future inevitably arrives, and unless you’re psychic, you probably got enough about it wrong for people to make fun of you. Plus, mass media always shows up to fringe cultures too late and in the wrong place; just ask the Sex Pistols. So let’s pay our respects to the creators of Hackers, who clearly weren’t and never met any real-life hackers, but bravely decided to make a movie about them anyway after (we’re guessing) reading a lot of William Gibson and just sort of soaking up the zeitgeist. What came out the other end is a fun, fast-paced heist movie and a delightfully silly snapshot of a particular moment in time. The soundtrack is all mid-90s electronic music like The Prodigy and Orbital. Everybody dresses like they’re doing a cover shoot for Mondo 2000; Angelina Jolie looks like she’s cosplaying Mr. Spock. But the thing that’s aged worst is how unflinchingly seriously the movie takes itself. Every scene throbs with the need to believe its own hype, to truly inspire others to “hack the planet.” Why is there nothing more redolent of pre-millennial works of pop culture than the sincere belief that you can actually change the world?