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At-A-Glance Film Reviews

Webmaster (1998)

Rating

[1.0]

Reviews and Comments

There's way too much narration in this movie, but that's the least of its troubles. The opening narration tells us about a hacker that hacked into a crime leader's "domain." Instead of being arrested, he was given the job of webmaster. He speaks about how the "domain" is structured, though it never becomes relevant, and how the "top layer" within it is the "safest place in cyberworld," because no hacker can get into it and upset the balance.

Ok, I admit it. I rented this movie just because of the title. The ironic part is, that's not even the real title. Webmaster is an English dub of a 1998 Danish film called Skyggen. I don't know if they used the Danish words for "domain" and "webmaster" in the original movie, but their usage here is laughable. There's no "web" anywhere here, and the guy's job description doesn't particularly resemble that of a webmaster. What is referred to as a "domain" is apparently just the crime boss' building of operations, strung with such a convolution of wires, it boggles the mind -- but there aren't any visible computers anywhere that I could tell. It becomes apparent that there's a hacker trying to get in and steal money. The hacker does this by having an "unauthorized terabit connection" installed that runs from the top floor to the basement. The wire is hidden carefully in plain view. When the line is spotted, no one ever thinks a snip with a pair of wire clippers would do the job.

As if this weren't enough, the movie is a downright bore. The main character is a blur, not even defined enough to qualify as a stereotype or caricature. The villain is uninteresting. None of the story makes any sense. I can't take enough stars away to do this movie justice.

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