WarGames: John Badham

I don’t know if I could imagine what 1980s audiences felt when they first watched John Badham‘s WarGames (1983). In a time when the Cold War was still hot and Mutually Assured Destruction was more than just a name for a deathcore metal band, the infamous conclusion that Nuclear War was a “strange game” where “the only winning move is not to play” must have been both shocking and cathartic. But thirty-two years later, I feel like I have the needed historical distance to examine the film as a piece of filmmaking and not just as a manifestation of the American zeitgeist. And I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed by the film’s incongruous tone. Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy feel ripped right out of a John Hughes teen comedy. Their solution to everything from fixing their bad school grades to escaping one of the most heavily guarded military installations on earth? Shenanigans. WarGames boasts stunning cinematography (especially in the last ten minutes of technological hysteria) and one of the most provocative and fascinating concepts in popular 1980s American cinema. But I wish it had been more Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) and less Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).

7/10