Sandra Bullock’s Sexy, ’90s Action Thriller Will Make You Care About Floppy Disks Again
Written by Robert Scucci | Published
There is nothing more exciting than watching a movie about modern technology from the 90s, 30 years after the fact. On the other hand, I’ll give the 1995s Net credit where due. Well done, Sandra Bullock is the hottest computer genius in the history of cinema (sorry, Hackers), and the structure makes sense because they are not bogged down in tech jargon and junk science. There is an important rule when it comes to interesting technical things: the less you explain the concept, the better. Net toes this line well because I know enough about computers to pick up what he drops, but I’m also dumb enough to think, “that makes sense,” while I’m watching.
I’m not going to stop the movie and look at technical semantics to prove this point, but the story is compelling enough to hold your attention without being so confusing that it pulls you out of what you’re doing. I don’t know how any of these things work at this level, and as a viewer, I appreciate that Net it doesn’t strike me as too dumb to understand what’s being said, while I also refuse to hold my hand because it’s all straight.
Sandra Bullock Lost in the Net
Net focuses on Sandra Bullock’s Angela Bennett. You’re a perfect follower of what’s to come because you’re a freelance software analyst who works from home. Most of his relationships are the kind of faceless encounters you have online, and his mom lives in a nursing home because she has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember her existence. It’s a lonely life for Angela, but she’s also well connected through her work. Or so he thought.
When Angela’s employee Dale (Ray McKinnon) sends her a floppy disk known as Mozart’s Ghost, she is told to press a Pi button hidden in the document, which acts as a back door to a program known as Gatekeeper, a program that contains cybersecurity information she should not have access to.
Dale dies under mysterious circumstances, and Angela goes on vacation, where she meets a man named Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam). Jack takes Angela out in his boat, but she leaves when he realizes that she is planning to kill him and take the floppy disk. After a violent altercation, Angela wakes up in the hospital three days later and discovers that Jack and his nameless, nameless friends have stumbled upon her identity and given her a new one: Ruth Marx.
Like Ruth, Angela uncovers a larger conspiracy involving a group of cyber terrorists known as the Praetorians, who are using Gatekeeper software to orchestrate a massive network failure across the country while implicating her. Angela confides in her former therapist and lover, Dr. Alan Champion (Dennis Miller), who doesn’t really believe in his conspiracy theories but also won’t refuse to meet him at the motels.
A Solid Tech Thriller for the Average iPhone User
Although I knew my way around MS-DOS as a kid and keep up with technology to some degree (I have an iPhone that’s five generations behind), my favorite Net that it gets its point across without being patronizing or overly complicated. There is a lot of flash of computer screens that help drive the story, but everything is so precise that you don’t get lost in the granular details. The main focus is conspiracy and a conspiracy to steal driving information Net. While you need to be technical from time to time to get from point A to B, you don’t need to be a genius to read between the lines and enjoy the joy of what it is.
What you need to know is that Sandra Bullock does her best to use the computer in a bikini, everyone thinks she’s someone she’s not, and because of this, she can’t trust anyone. It’s obviously old by today’s standards, but it’s still a fun watch because it deals with the concepts of internet security that are still relevant. I would imagine that similar discussions about different applications are happening behind closed doors today. We just got the 1995 version here.
As of this writing, Net is streaming for free on Tubi.
