‘WarGames’ is an 80s classic that delves into ideas that were fairly original for the decade in question. A high-school underachiever and hacker, David (Matthew Broderick), attempts to hack into a game company. In his exploit hunt, he connects to a mysterious system that lists him multiple games. He chooses “Global Thermonuclear War” to impress his crush, Jennifer (Ally Sheedy). Instead, he ends up penetrating the mainframe of a nuclear facility. It lands him in a world of trouble and sets off a countdown to World War 3 between the USA and the Soviet Union.

The acting, set design, editing, and cinematography were excellent and always entertaining. The film, unfortunately, has not aged well from a visual and filming perspective, but the ideas were well ahead of its time. Very few people in the ‘80s were thinking about self-aware artificial intelligence, computer hacking, networks, encryption, firewalls, and using a voice synthesizer to hack a keypad. The average computers back then were rudimentary and not even as powerful as a Gameboy Advance, which every kid in the mid-2000s was rocking (including me). The most powerful supercomputers from the 80s would be a laughingstock next to an early 2000s computer. A basic smartphone from 2010 would run circles around multi-billion dollar supercomputers of the 80s. It's crazy how quickly technology develops. While it’s still an interesting film to think about, there are issues. It’s unrealistic that NORAD would have such weak security, allowing someone to log in with just a name and no further authentication. That’s silly. It’s also nonsensical to think there would be an advanced A.I. in the 80s with such basic technology. The final ending scenes were also preposterous, with the “happily ever after” ending. The technology is realistic in concept with an advanced A.I. capable of hijacking systems, including a nuclear facility (as depicted in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning). However, A.I. is not there yet. Unless the military has had a top-secret A.I. that is beyond the capabilities currently documented, I think we are still another decade away from true self-thinking AI, making this film 50 years ahead of its time.

Would I recommend this? It’s not a must-watch film, but I enjoyed it. I think the plot is fun and keeps you wondering what is coming next. If I was a young adult or teenager in 1983 watching this, ‘WarGames’ would blow my mind. Today in 2024, not so much. For an 80s film, I thought it was very good.