Ready to jump into the review of this movie again? If not, go read Part 1! Considering the crazy amount of explanation there is to do
in this film, I prefer not to waste your time with a long intro. Let’s go!
|
A long time ago, two astronauts tried the same trick
to escape the listening ears of a machine. It failed there
as well. |
Two agents (played by Trevor Hayes and Claudia Ferri) monitoring
RIPLEY at Homeland Security meet in a car outside to discuss the affair. Agent
Aaron Scott explains that RIPLEY has really been going overboard. Due to the
tenuous links between Will and the terrorist group the money used in the Dead
Code game came from, the machine will keep on looking for connections, up to
the six degrees of separations; in layman’s terms, you might know it better as
the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It’s the theory saying that, if you took into
account every person you met (or shook hands with) in your life, and then all
the people each of these people met (or shook hands with), and continued this
way, it will rarely take more than 6 such “connections” to be linked to anyone
else in the world. RIPLEY is currently doing this to find an explanation for
the Will Farmer case, which may lead it to incriminate most of the entire
global population if it continues. Oh, by the way, RIPLEY watches them and
reads their lips again… and is willing to manipulate road signals to get them
out of its way… because yes, it can fucking do that, as it proves in a later
scene, which leads to one agent getting hit by a car when the traffic lights
suddenly change at an intersection…
|
Ah yes, those cold Canadian winters... |
Professor Stephen Falken drives Will Farmer and Annie
D’Mateo to a factory in a recluse sector, and on the way they reflect on the
situation. Falken explains that he was part of RIPLEY’s design team, he was
considered too threatening; hence why he hides. However, he was also diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer, adding weight to why he’d kill himself (or fake such,
in this case), and suffers from the disease. Will says that he lost his father
at a young age, that he died after catching some local illness in a foreign
country. Falken lays down the real facts: Will’s father worked for the American
military and had been sent to Bosnia to help develop bioweapons… after which they
got rid of him, using those same diseases they were preparing to throw en masse
during the next armed conflict; and his death was disguised under a cover story
for his family. These family relations also explain why RIPLEY ended up having
such a freak-out…
|
Gosh, this thing belongs in a museum. |
Soon the three of them reach a mostly abandoned
station, where they are greeted by an old Russian guy. In there, they find the
old War Operator Plan Response computer (WOPR, or JOSHUA, whichever you
prefer). Falken inserts a card in the machine and types the backdoor password
(Joshua), which causes the old machine to suddenly become a lot more efficient
than it was. It even replies to Falken’s written lines with its own unique
lines and its very own voice. Like an ancestor to Chatbots everywhere.
At Homeland Security, Hassert states that bioweapon
prototypes have been found in the terrorist cell in Damascus (the one Will and
*sigh* Dennis took money from) corresponding with the chemical samples found in
the Farmers’ household, and that there might well be a dormant terrorist cell in
Philadelphia. RIPLEY, listening in, decides to raise the threat alerts to a
maximum and cuts off all the power in Philadelphia, with a countdown towards
“decontamination” starting at 12 hours. Holy shit, RIPLEY is planning to nuke
the goddamn city!
|
It's a gaming overload!!! |
Since JOSHUA was in part made to work in tandem with
RIPLEY, this means it can infiltrate its systems. Falken commands JOSHUA to
“play games” with RIPLEY, which makes JOSHUA overload RIPLEY with Tic-Tac-Toe,
checkers, go and chess matches, enough to slow it down, which brings back some
power to Philadelphia…. But RIPLEY reboots itself to get rid of the games, and
then launches a warhead towards the station where WOPR is located. The old
machine barely has time to warn Falken, Will, Annie and the Russian guy. Falken
stays behind and does a few things on WOPR as Will, Annie and the Russian guy
get out in a hurry, merely seconds before the warhead falls and destroys the
station. That’s also when the Special Forces arrive to arrest Will and Annie,
and bring them to Homeland Security. At a little under an hour from
“decontamination”.
|
Well, we didn't get a Philadelphia-shattering kaboom, but we did get a
Falken-shattering kaboom. ...Oh WOW, that was NASTY from me. |
Brought to a room near the main control center of
RIPLEY, Will and Annie (who’ve been given a laptop) devise a plan and contact
Dennis to help them. They’ll be launching a DDoS attack on the machine’s
servers, to slow RIPLEY down considerably. You know, this might be one of the
first times in fiction that they portray such a technique. And at least, this
time around, it’s used against a real threat. (Plus, for once, Dennis does
something useful, it was about time…) And it works, as RIPLEY drops some of her
control over Philadelphia as more and more people connect themselves to
RIPLEY’s game. But she reboots again to negate most of the effects of the DDoS
attack. However, Will accesses JOSHUA, which has been sent by Falken through
e-mail. JOSHUA’s methods are still insufficient, though, so they convince the
agents of Homeland Security to boost the prize rewards for RIPLEY’s game from
25,000$ to 100 million and advertise it everywhere to cause maximum traffic.
After all, if there’s one thing we can count on in this world, it’s greedy
people attempting to win it big with minimal effort, right?
|
In the background: All the player accounts opening in the hopes of winning
the promised 100 million $. In the foreground: An old Colm Feore who's
playing his role far too seriously for such a silly script. |
|
So RIPLEY absolutely had to wish to self-destruct?
Sigh, those damned machines sometimes...
So illogical! |
Feeling threatened, RIPLEY redirects the mission
towards the Homeland Security headquarters, in Washington D.C. Annie explains
that there’s a branch of chess masters playing “suicide chess”, where the point
is to lose by having the opponent take all your pieces before you take theirs.
Will explains this concept to JOSHUA and makes the program play this with
RIPLEY, in a “Russian roulette” kind of way. With only 13 minutes at the
countdown, JOSHUA begins playing with RIPLEY, each time causing a “loss” by
showing that the launch of a single nuclear warhead would inevitably result in
a Third World War, which is exactly what RIPLEY was programmed to prevent.
Every scenario ends with the ominous message “Total annihilation”. The problem
with this plan is that these simulations are meant to lead to actual attacks,
with 1/6th of the nuclear warheads in America being currently ready
for launch, and were they to find an active warhead RIPLEY could launch it.
|
You know you've fallen low if you're desperate for a
machine to get a clue... |
And as luck would have it, a simulation weapon turns
out available, heading for Washington D.C. Goddammit, I should have never
watched this film! Is my inherent bad luck, my jinx, traveling across media now
and tipping the odds against protagonists by the mere fact that I’m watching
them? When will this bad luck ever leave me??? Thankfully, by this point RIPLEY
has learned that there is no point in a game where victory means defeat, and
stops responding, canceling the attack. When JOSHUA asks it if they’re still
playing, RIPLEY responds that “the only winning move is not to play”. Huh, I
feel the same about Uno, Monopoly, Mario Party 2 and Mario Kart DS. Hurray,
catastrophe avoided!
|
Well... in this ending's defense, they're two computer
nerds. They know they're compatible. |
After the celebrations, Will asks JOSHUA if he really
would have launched the warhead, since it got so close to doing so. JOSHUA
replies that he would have as the humans are finished… before adding that it
was a joke. You know, I’m not sure if I want my AI with a sense of humor after
this. I mean, it’s already bad enough when they take everything seriously, what
will it be like when we snark at them and they snark back? Whatever. All’s well
that ends well, Will is now dating Annie (Oh great, does that mean he “earned”
her? Urgh.), roll credits.
Bleh. Can’t say I outright hated it, but it’s still a
rather mediocre film. Then again, what else was I to expect from a
direct-to-DVD film?
I mean, I could say I’m happy that the film is set,
for half of its duration, in Quebec, and that it features mostly Canadian
actors. There’s also that, for all the flak I could give it, the movie at least
treats hacking with more serious than most films, in that it uses real
techniques that take time, and the machines (especially RIPLEY) show exactly
what kind of dangers await those who put too much faith in a learning AI… not
that we needed another reminder anyway. There is not a danger of a third World
War (not until the final “duel” between JOSHUA and RIPLEY, anyway), but this
whole mess ends up causing different kinds of problems to the American
infrastructure.
However, despite whatever little praise I could give,
the film gets taken down by a number of issues. The passable acting, the
terrible CGI special effects and the nonsensical story. I made jokes about it
in Part 1, there are so many coincidences in this plot that it’s pretty much
impossible to believe. What’s worse, for this plot to work, it needs those
coincidences. This story is just a mess, and it’s so blatantly obvious which
way it’s going to go that you’ll see it coming from miles away. Stephen Falken
returning? Seen it. JOSHUA appearing? Seen it. RIPLEY turning on its masters?
Totally unexpected! Oh, who am I kidding… SEEN IT! Annie bringing up a variant
of chess to help defeat RIPLEY? I mean, that scene at the chess club had to have a purpose, right? Need I go on?
For a movie that tries to depict neither side as a
villain, the agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sure do a lot
of dangerous things, like relying on RIPLEY (programming her with defects that
make her a threat to anyone, including themselves), or chasing after Will and
Annie and almost running them over. Their plan, as a whole, is idiotic. Using
an online video game to detect potential instances of domestic terrorism? Gee,
what can go wrong with that plan? The only way to play that stupid Dead Code
game is to bet money, so for one, those potential “terrorists” who don’t have
money to waste on online games won’t go detected. And what about totally
innocent gamers who somehow reach that game, beat it (after multiple attempts)
and get falsely accused of terrorism? No video game can be used to properly
judge if someone is dangerous, nor can video games cause violence in real life.
One’s attitude in a game can and will differ greatly from what they are in real
life, especially when the potential for cruelty in-game is at a maximum.
|
Never forget this. |
And I’m forgetting many other instances. Oh, and of
course, should I mention that Will’s friend Dennis now ranks on my personal Top
15 of the most annoying characters I have ever had the (dis)honor to see
on-screen? Sure, by the end he helps in taking down RIPLEY, but it’s too little
too late. He’s not all bad, he does have a few good moments here and there, but
his awful moments are far more frequent.
In the end, War Games: The Dead Code is a poor movie,
a sequel no one asked to a movie that was never meant to be a franchise. Don’t
bother with it. It’s not entirely terrible, but it’s definitely not worth actively
seeking it out. Hell, I only paid my copy of it 3 dollars, and that’s enough. I
don’t think I’m going to watch it again. The worst part is that MGM thought,
for a moment, that there could be more direct-to-DVD films based around War
Games, but thankfully this plan doesn’t seem to have carried through. Guess
they didn’t make enough money.
You know what? Go play chess instead. Though, I’ve
also seen my fair share of crazy chess players…
Next week? Oh, time to continue looking at the Kirby
games in the Dream Collection, with Kirby’s Dream Land 2!
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