ReCamp: The Net (1995)

“It’ll catch ya!” – Not the tagline, unfortunately.

Internet-ly speaking, the ‘90s were a very different time. We were warned not to tell anyone our first names, to only reveal our ages to our must trusted friends, and to never, EVER share photos of ourselves. Obviously, with the advent of social networking, things are a bit different now. And therein lies the hilarity of 1995's techno-thriller The Net.

Unlike similar mid-90s films like Hackers which sought to make the internet and its denizens seem all hip and sexy, The Net is a cautionary tale about what could happen to any of us should the wrong information fall into the wrong-er hands. Exploding aircrafts! Stock market crashes! STRANGERS KNOWING OUR FAVORITE MOVIES. For god’s sake, what kind of world are we living in?!

But let's backtrack a bit. The premise of the movie is this: Reclusive software analyst Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) is perfectly content spending her days working from her Venice, California bungalow, eschewing human contact in favor of staying home, knocking back a few cocktails, and ordering pizzas online. (I hear ya, girl.) But Angela's humdrum world is turned up!side!down! when she stumbles upon a super-secret portal to the files of a global network of "cyberterrorists" (lol) known as the Praetorians. How they could leave these documents so easily accessible to the general public is beyond me, but let's ignore that for now. Every other character seems to.

#tbt me every single Saturday night in middle school

Once they realize that their extremely incriminating database has been breached, the Praetorians target Angela by sending one of their associates after her, a slick British con-man hacker named Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam). He tracks Angela down during her vacation in Cozumel  – would an agoraphobe like Angela really travel abroad for fun? – and seduces her before attempting to (1) murder her and (2) retrieve the 3.5" floppy disk upon which the damning Praetorian evidence is stored. Of course, Devlin fails on both counts and Angela escapes. But her trouble has only just begun!

“25 free hours of Prodigy?!”

What follows is an unintentionally hilarious, moral panic-laced story about identity theft and the implications of our society’s dependence on technology. Director Irwin Winkler makes sure to remind us at every turn, and in cartoonish detail, that each moment of our daily lives is recorded on and dictated by computers. When Angela attempts to return to her normal life, it becomes clear that Devlin and the Praetorians wield a ludicrous degree of power over every piece of technology ever created: Her car goes missing, her police records are altered to say that she’s a drug addicted prostitute with multiple warrants out for her arrest, her entire house is stolen. (Excuse me? Is one of the Praetorians Carmen Sandiego?)

After fleeing from the authorities, Angela seeks out former friend/therapist/paramour Alan Champion (Dennis Miller) for help. He provides her with food, shelter and a fresh pair of mom jeans, but that’s about it. For reasons unexplained, Alan never truly believes Angie’s story, so it’s not long before the Praetorians begin to exert their seemingly inexhaustible influence over him, too. (I’d love to know how mentally unstable Angela was before Alan began treating her; she calls him in the middle of the night, crying because her identity was stolen and people are attempting to murder her, and he thinks she’s "just reaching out”? She must have been completely psychotic. Prequel, please!) With nowhere left to run, things are looking pretty hopeless for our heroine.

That is, until she discovers a way to turn the tables on her predators. After poking around chat rooms and completing some simple research, Angela determines that her Learning Annex-levels of computer expertise have equipped her with the resources necessary to take down an international crime syndicate (again: lol). Does she succeed? Or does she decide to just ride it out in her new life as a prostitute? (By the way, the name on her fabricated rap sheet is Ruth – probably the worst part of this whole ordeal for her.)

Academy Award® Winner Sandra Bullock

Now The Net has its strong points. Bullock is sympathetic enough that you can't help feeling at least a little bad when even Angela’s next door neighbors are testifying against her. (Sidenote: I’m still not convinced that there wasn't a single person who could identify her. You’re telling me this movie takes place in ‘90s Los Angeles, yet Angela doesn't have a barista who knows her name and order by heart? Yeah, okay.) Plus there are a few authentic moments of tension, like when we realize that Angela's predicament has put her senile mother's life in jeopardy. Still, this movie is cult classic material, through and through.

While it may charm those of us who get wistful when we hear the caterwauling of a dial-up modem, The Net certainly doesn't stand the test of time. The screenplay (penned by Michael Ferris and John Brancato, a duo who delivered such other cinematic triumphs as Catwoman and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) is more concerned with scaring the audience away from their keyboards than keeping them in actual suspense, yet it isn't even effective at doing that! We’re supposed to be terrified by the idea that internet stalkers may able to determine what our favorite foods and beverages are (“They knew what I ate! They knew what I drank!” Bullock sobs in one scene), as if anyone, stalker or prey, would possibly care. The writers should've had the Praetorians run up a bunch of charges from Filipino porn sites on Angela’s debit card, which she would have to dispute with Diane, the bitchy customer service representative at her local credit union –- THAT would have made for a realistic, stomach-churning thriller.

AOL Keyword: Chaturbate

Not helping matters is the relentless, close-up attention paid to dated techno-artifacts which is so jarring that it prevents the viewer from ever becoming truly immersed in the story. As soon as it begins to pull you in, BAM, Angelfire-quality web design right in your face. We see a 700 pound CRT monitor crash to the floor; we watch characters chatting away on their corded car phones; we hear people repeatedly use the word “cyber” as a prefix, and so on.  You can’t help but wonder why, when technology evolves so rapidly, the director would want or allow the film to be so instantly date-able. Oh, well. His loss is our gain, ‘cause it’s adorable to see e-mail referred to as “electronic mail.”

Yeah, The Net might be a relic, but at least it's a dopey, nostalgia-laden relic which is worth watching for the absurdly outdated melodrama alone. It’ll make you long for the days of Netscape, back when the internet was a place where you'd go to escape from your daily life rather than telegraphing every moment of it through Tweets and Instagram photos.

My rating: Four out of five Zip drives.