WARGAMES: The Only Winning Movie

RETRO REVIEW

NOTE: Wouldn’t you prefer a good game of SPOILERS?

“Hey, I don’t believe that any system is totally secure.”

- David Lightman (Matthew Broderick), WarGames

One of the reasons I think the ‘80s was such a seminal decade for moviemaking was that, rather unlike today, original ideas were given precedence. More importantly, these ideas could have a streak of fun to them. These ideas were often termed as “high concept”; a premise that could be summed up in one sentence to get a picture of what the movie could be. Back to the Future is probably the most famous high concept film ever created (“What if you went to high school with your parents?”). Slightly less famous, but arguably just as fun, was a film that was released two years prior: WarGames.

Originally the film was to be directed by Martin Brest as a serious-minded thriller but when the studio preferred the original lighter tone of the script, he begrudgingly left the project a few weeks into filming. Brest would soon move onto the Eddie Murphy blockbuster, Beverly Hills Cop. Needing a director very quickly, the producers hired John Badham, who had experience in replacing previously-hired directors with Saturday Night Fever (in that case, it was Rocky director John G. Avildsen). Badham responded very positively to keeping the film delightful as opposed to dark and WarGames turned into a lighthearted adventure.

The only thing David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) takes seriously in life is video games. He impresses his friend Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) by hacking into their school computer system and improving their grades. He happens upon an advertisement for a computer company’s new line of video games that he wants to track down and play before anyone else. Improvising a system that dials random numbers, David and Jennifer come across an artificial intelligence known as Joshua that seems eager to play games with them. The most interesting game to David is the last one listed: “Global Thermonuclear War”. Little does David know is that Joshua is actually the WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) simulation machine designed for NORAD. When the game actually shows up on the massive screens in the military’s sealed-away bunker, the generals and technicians are convinced World War III is imminent. Now convinced their harmless actions might set off the end of the world, David and Jennifer go on the run to locate the presumed dead creator of the WOPR computer and find a way to stop the countdown to nuclear annihilation.

Matthew Broderick plays David Lightman, a character probably closer to Marty McFly than Ferris Bueller in that while the character is charming and smart, he also is allowed to make mistakes. His fellow John Hughes alumni Ally Sheedy is attractive, bubbly and caring in the way a lot more girl characters in the ‘80s were not being played. John Wood brings a great warmth and intelligence to his character that was originally written for John Lennon before his tragic assassination (Wood would later reunite with Matthew Broderick in the cult fantasy film Ladyhawke). Dabney Coleman and Barry Corbin round out the cast as a bickering team of systems engineer and “good ol’ boy” general, respectively. Robert Zemeckis alumni Eddie Deezen (I Wanna Hold Your Hand) and James Tolkan (Back to the Future) also make brief appearances.

There’s a quote by 2001: A Space Odyssey author Arthur C. Clarke that says, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. In the 1980s, computer technology might as well have been magic. Films like TRON and Superman III portrayed computers as almost cartoonishly omnipotent. WarGames stands apart as a more realistic depiction of what computers were and are capable of. Granted, I do not think anybody could outsmart a computer programmed for nuclear holocaust by forcing it to play infinite games of tic-tac-toe but it is entertaining to watch nonetheless.

WarGames is a ‘80s film often forgotten to time when compared to its bigger-budgeted competitors but it deserves better. It garnered three Academy Award nominations including Best Cinematography and Best Original Screenplay (remarkable considering few genre films today would ever be considered). More importantly, it is a positive depiction of two different generations working together for the greater good. Peace is the primary goal we all should strive for and if a quirky little movie can help out in that respect, why not? Especially in this horrible day and age.