The Net

1995 "Her driver's license. Her credit cards. Her bank accounts. Her identity. DELETED."
6| 1h54m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 28 July 1995 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Angela Bennett is a freelance software engineer who lives in a world of computer technology. When a cyber friend asks Bennett to debug a new game, she inadvertently becomes involved in a conspiracy that will soon turn her life upside down and make her the target of an assassination.

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nadinesalakovv "The Net" is a great movie, still very watchable to this day. The story line can get confusing, but that is where Rewatching comes in. Some movies are like that, you have to Rewatch to understand the plot fully.Even though the technology compared to today seems stale back then, it still somehow works out because technology is constantly becoming advanced.We see "Angela Bennett"'s life go into turmoil after getting her hands on computer information. We see that she is a clever tech nerd, but is very naive on the social aspect which resulted in her almost getting killed on holiday."The Net" is a fast-paced riveting hi-tech thriller. Sandra Bullock carries the entire movie on her back very well. She is a strong main lead and the supporting characters are also very good in their roles. I'd say the only other main character is "Jack Devlin" (Played by Jeremy Northam) he is also good in his role."The Net" is a cat and mouse game/clear my name/bring justice type of thriller. I would put this next to another brilliant movie of this genre - "AntiTrust", although it is not as well known as "The Net" it is just as good.
Minahzur Rahman This movie was a good one. The Net is one of these few computer-based movies I watched several times. The Net is another one of these wonderful 90s films we were blessed with. I'd say that because back then, computers really started to take-off, and everyone was starting to get obsessed with getting their hands on these wonderful or amazing machines. But at the same time, these computers has its downsides, and this movie (The Net) showed it. If you were to watch The Net back then, you would probably have felt very worried about the dangers of computers, internet, technology etc. Yes, the movie has its flaws and all that, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying this movie. Sandra Bullock was a great choice to play her character, and I don't think anyone else could've done it any better. Whatever success this film had, it was all due to her. A good time to be released as well.
Filipe Neto This film tells how a young computer technician sees her life stolen by hackers, who want to install an advanced computer hacking program on the computers of banks and state enterprises. Soon, she turns into a target, sought by the police, and arranges a way to stop the villains. It's a rather unreal story, full of holes but nice, creating a suspense that can hold us until the end. The pace is good and the short length also helps, there is no plot for a very long film. I especially liked Jeremy Northam, who gives us the main villain, a dangerous assassin in charge of stealing a disc that went to the hands of Angela (Bullock's character), and that tries to do it approaching romantically of her before revealing its face and trying to kill her. Sandra Bullock also played well, but we have seen this actress in several other similar characters. The rest is within the standards of a regular action movie of the nineties, so there is nothing more to point out here.
Phil Hubbs Now this was a blast from the past, my teenage years (I was 17 at the time). It might seem crazy these days but I distinctly remember watching this in the cinema with a friend, and both of us scoffing at how ridiculous the movies premise was. The whole idea of the internet (something that was more of a joke back then) being able to bring down someone's entire life. The idea of people actually having portable computers and being able to use them, online! everywhere! The idea of someone's life revolving around a computer...or more specifically the net, was at the time almost inconceivable (unless you were rich). Yes these were simpler times my friends, back before the internet was an integral part of people's lives, or before the internet was even taken seriously. Hell back then movies like this were the only introduction some people had to the, so called, information highway. This and movies like 'The Lawnmower Man' were pretty much the only things most common people saw of the internet, hence why we all thought it was a gimmicky flash in the pan. Even British videogames TV show 'GamesMaster' would mock the internet with its limited abilities at the time. We were told one day we'd all be surfing the net, we all ridiculed the notion, how wrong we were.Anyway the movie. Systems analyst Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) is accidentally drawn into the dark world of cyber terrorism when her work college sends her sensitive information on a floppy disk (remember those?!). The information revolves around the death of the US Secretary of Defense and a large software company CEO, Jeff Gregg. Whilst on holiday Bennett gets wined and dined by mysterious British gent Jack Devlin whom she starts to have feelings for. But before she knows it this British gent is trying to kill her so he can get his hands on this disk. Following a nasty accident where Bennett tries to escape Devlin, she awakes in hospital to discover her life has been deleted. Bennett must now try and find help to recover her life, evade Devlin, and uncover the truth on the disk.Yeah so the plot is your typical computer hacking/expert, on the run type affair which is now a dated concept. This idea was quite new at the time but director Irwin Winkler really tapped into the public's interest by utilising the newfangled internet contraption. The internet wasn't unheard of at the time of course, but it was intriguing to the masses and was used a lot to present an exciting new angle to movies. It was almost like an unexplored universe and Hollywood wasn't gonna let it slip by without milking its every potential.The other main draw for this movie was actress Sandra Bullock who was literally the biggest thing in Hollywood between 1993 - 1995. Hot off a trilogy of blockbusting hits that were 'Demolition Man', 'Speed' and 'While You Were Sleeping', Bullock could do no wrong. She was America's sweetheart with her adorable, girl next door looks and squeaky clean image. People just went to movies starring Bullock, no questions asked, she was huge.This movie also used the highly unpopular nerd image which was still something to mock at the time. Nowadays nerds are all the rage but back in the day oh no, being a nerd was not cool. But what baffled people even more was the introduction to a sexy female nerd, this was virtually unheard of at the time. This did present a problem for the movie simply because no one believed a sexy female could be a whizz- kid on computers or a nerd. Especially Bullock who was Hollywood's new darling leading lady. And admittedly it is hard to believe Bullock in this role because she simply doesn't look like she understands what shes talking about half the time. She also looks surprisingly unathletic considering her previous action movies, she kinda sleepwalks through this looking bored.Looking back now this movie is fun simply to see all the retro hardware and early programs in action. All these chunky laptops, very basic net page layouts, disk swapping and loading etc...it does bring back many memories. The action is kinda sparse but reasonably thrilling I suppose, it was never gonna be a violent movie with Bullock in the lead. Bullock was the queen of PG-13/12 rated movies. So the movie cuts away for any violence and there is little profanity, if any. Jeremy Northam is easily the best thing about the film with his devilishly charming contract killer, probably why his character is called Devlin.In the end this is a very safe and harmless action thriller that didn't want to rock the boat for its leading lady. Bullock is still cute and cuddly while under the stress of being hunted down by a hit-man. Being a movie about computers director Winkler obviously couldn't pass up a chance to film at the Macworld/iWorld trade show in San Francisco. So naturally the tense unrealistic finale is shot there. It is hilarious to watch Bennett downloading/uploading such large chunks of data onto floppy disks just in the nick of time. I'm just gonna assume that the trade show would have had the best of the best computers on show so that made it possible. Its all very silly, cutesy and charming these days, so amusing to think this was a big serious release back in the day.5.5/10