WARGAMES

   Film (1983). Sherwood Productions/MGM/UA. Dir John BADHAM, starring Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, Ally Sheedy, Barry Corbin. Screenplay Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes. 113 mins. Colour.

   Teenager David (Broderick) attempts to use his computer to hack into the programs of a computer-games manufacturer. Accidentally - after a week's research from which he deduces a secret password that will give him access to the system - he breaks into WOPR, the giant Department of Defense computer with which the USA will, if necessary, direct the operations of WWIII. Unable to distinguish between game theory and real life, WOPR, in playingthe game of Global Thermonuclear War with David, almost sets off Armageddon. The film is briskly directed, with an ingenious first hour andso engaging a narrative sweep that the gaping logical holes in its plot may become evident only at a second viewing. It is in fact silly, not least for the crudely drawn character of Falken (Wood), WOPR's creator, who thinks we all deserve to die anyway (like the dinosaurs), and appears to change his mind only because David's girlfriend (Sheedy) is cute; the metaphor of WAR as video game is both amusing and tritely reductive, and became an sf CLICHE in the 1980s (CYBERSPACE). Badham is a good action director whose films often collapse into ethical confusion on any examination of their superficially liberal credentials.The novelization is WarGames * (1983) by David F. BISCHOFF.

   PN

   See also: CINEMA; VIRTUAL REALITY.