WarGames

Looking for computer games, a teen (Matthew Broderick) gains access to NORAD’s supercomputer, Joshua, with potentially disastrous results.

Despite being firmly grounded in 1983 and Cold War paranoia, WarGames remains an entertaining thriller over twenty-five years later due to an intelligent script, a perfect lead, and a great array of character actors.

Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes’ Academy Award nominated screenplay (they lost to Horton Foote for Tender Mercies (1983)) does a fantastic job mixing escapist fantasy, techno-thrills, and teen drama. It also proved to be remarkably prescient, foreshadowing (among other things) firewalls, war dialing, the prevalence of the Internet, and social engineering.

To execute Lasker and Parkes’ script, director John Badham (who replaced Martin Brest early in production) commands a great cast. Matthew Broderick is perfect as the lead. He’s the ideal mix of naivety and inquisitiveness, a nerd without being nerdy, a hero without muscles. Supporting Broderick is a great array of character actors, including John Spencer and Michael Madsen (look for them early), John Wood, Dabney Coleman, and Barry Corbin, who gets all the best lines and almost steals the film.

Granted, the WarGames isn’t perfect. Its prevalent use of then cutting-edge technology does date the film and the premise doesn’t hold up to a lot of scrutiny, but neither of these blemishes detracts too much from what is otherwise a solid thriller.