WarGames war movie

WarGames (1983, United States)

Categories: science fiction movies bunker movies

WarGames

Director: John Badham

Czas: 114 minut

Laguages: English

war movies infoAdam 'Frey' Barczynski
2018-07-09 / 2018-07-09

After tests of ICBM silo crews proved that most of them would not follow the strict launch procedures the headquarters decide to replace them with the central computer terminals to remove the human factor, but it turns out the computer has a small flaw in its software.

After recent tests of ICBM silo crews proved that most of them would not follow the instructions to launch the rocket without further confirmation of the nuclear attack on United States, the commanders of missile defence decided to replace the crews with the WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) computer terminals to remove the human factor from the equation. High school student David Lightman, while trying to hack into software company system, accidentally reaches one of the parts of WOPR and runs, what he believes, a game that simulates the nuclear war with Soviet Union. Unfortunately the game turns out to be a part of WOPR software and the simulation David started is passed to the headquarters in NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, where informations about incoming Soviet nuclear missiles are treated as the real thing and the whole NORAD system is being prepared for the immediate retaliation. David break the connection before the generals decide to actually push the button that would start the nuclear war, but soon he discovers that there is something strange within the software.

American drama showing, just like Fail Safe years earlier, the danger of putting too much faith in computers without the human supervision. Even though Fail Safe was made in 1964 the danger linked with the nuclear war being started by mistake was in 1983 still a real threat to whole human kind and even though the technology made the giant leap forward it was still far from being self-reliant. Even over 30 years later, two decades from end of Cold War, it still isn’t... The film unfortunately involved teenage hacker story, which was popular theme in early 1980s, so WarGames actually is a mixture of not enough interesting drama and too much of teenage genius story.

Our rating

3.6

Film value

3 / 10

Realism factor

2 / 5

Adventure factor

3 / 5

Historical accuracy

1 / 5

2018-07-09