Product Details

• Actors: Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Jesse Bradford, Matthew Lillard, Laurence Mason
• Directors: Iain Softley
• Writers: Rafael Moreu
• Producers: Iain Softley, Janet Graham, Michael Peyser, Ralph Winter, Selwyn Roberts
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English, Italian, Japanese, Russian
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: MGM/Ua Studios
• VHS Release Date: February 20, 1996
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (309 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303908128
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #44,683 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
As a depiction of the computer-hacker underground, this movie is bogus to the bone. As a thriller, it's cartoonish and conventional. The premise (computer-happy kids hack into the wrong system, and the Forces of Repression come after them) is recycled from John Badham's 1983 WarGames. And the corporate-creep bad guy, played by Fisher Stevens, steeples his fingers and growls mossy villainous clichés. ("By the time they realize the truth, we'll be long gone with all the money.") For all its postmodern trappings the movie is working with sub-prehistoric storytelling tools. But it does succeed on one level, as a movie about adolescent bonding and alienation. The director, Iain Softley, helmed the Beatles-in-Hamburg biopic Backbeat, and he seems to have an instinct for the emotions that pull kids together around common interests and the insecurities that drive them apart. The familiar crises of loyalty and betrayal have an ache of real loneliness. It doesn't hurt that the two stars, Jonny Lee Miller (Sick Boy Williamson in Trainspotting) and Angelina Jolie (Gia), are just about equally gorgeous and charismatic; their longing glances steam up the screen. --David Chute

From The New Yorker
This movie, about a group of Internet-surfing teen-agers who hack into a computer system and become targets of a terrorist conspiracy, moves like a good episode of a hip Fox TV show. The director, Iain Softley, is a lover of fast cuts, and he has done one of the neater jobs of incorporating video techniques and effects into a film. The design is impressive, the sensational techno score adds drive to the action, and the two gorgeous leads (Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie) smolder nicely. The story is negligible, but it offers the same order of fun as a good rock video: the marriage of images and music. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just a movie, a way of life, March 3, 2002

By	David Koski "b-movie fan" (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hackers (DVD)

If you want a serious movie about hackers, look somewhere else. If you want a really fun movie with good style, Angelina Jolie, and a pulsing soundtrack, Hackers may be for you.

Johhny Lee Miller (aka Crash Override or Zero Cool) moves to New York with his mother. He meets Angelina Jolie (aka Acid Burn) at school and they immediately become rivals. They come up with a hacking contest to prove who is the best. Together with their friends, Lord Nikon, Cereal Killer (my favorite), Phantom Phreak, and Joey (who is nobody without a handle) join up to take on Fisher Stevens as Mr. The Plague.

This movie is chock full of cool scenes, cool people, and skater technobabble. Sure, the hacking scenes are totally unrealistic, the people unrealistic as computer geeks, but with the awesome techno soundtrack and the style they are presented with, it is easy to overlook. Just sit back and enjoy the ride!

I think that most sysadmin types probably have Mr The Plague as their role model. As a villain, he is ultra suave. As a sysadmin, he is over the top. I have never seen a computer guy with this much panache, and I don't suspect I will see another.

After you have made it through the movie a few times you can begin to watch for the fun stuff. Watch Mr The Plague's hands, especially in the flower delivery scene. When they go over to Lord Nikon's place and watch TV, consider what is playing. How many of their secret hacker books do you own?

If I could give this movie more stars, I would. This is by far my favorite hacker type movie, and if you count the number of times I have watched it, it would rank as my all time favorite over all. BUY IT NOW! It is better than Cats, you will watch it again and again.

The soundtrack is available on CD, and if you are a techno fan I suggest looking in to it.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Movie, March 11, 2000

By	"bizkit_d" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hackers (DVD)

this movie is absolutly great, it's a great story, a lot of people complain about it, because it doesn't depict true hacker culture, well people, ya gotta remember two things: 1.) this movie is meant to be a visual manifestation of what hackers see the computer world is, and 2.) if they really showed what true hackers saw on their screen (mostly text, no graphics) then people would get boring, and not want to watch it, and the people that review this movie are always saying, " i'm a hacker, and i never goto clubs like that", tends to tip off the fact that the person really isn't a a hacker, and should use their imagination, and really get the creativity that went into this movie, this is a top of the line movie, awesome music, good acting, and nice visuals, 5 stars all the way!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hackers Review: by - The DarkCircuitry, December 1, 1999

By	Choir of One (Huntington, WV USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hackers (DVD)

There was a lot of talk about this movie over the Net..90% of net hackers will probably tell u this is the worst movie ever created but i disagree with that ...this movie got me into computers in the first place . I own the DVD and i must have watched this movie over 400 times by now..maybe more i never really kept track, it has its hyped up moments or even a far fetched moment here and there but its a movie for crying out loud, what i think was most accurate (at least to me) was the portrayal of someone who is obsessed by technology and just how the whole sub-culture of the computer underground is like, the clothing, the music, the attitude was all very nice i love this movie and when i have kids they will probably be like "oh god, dads getting out the Hackers DVD again.." and they will probably hate it but it, in my opinion of course, is an excellent movie. Though i urge MGM-DVD to re-release it with some extra features, the features are what make DVD what it is. I saw some scenes flashed in that trailer that were not in the movie and i would give anything to see them,