WarGames

Cute but silly, this 1983 cautionary fantasy stars Matthew Broderick as a teenage computer genius who hacks into the Pentagon's defence system and sets World War III into motion. All the fun is in the film's set-up, as Broderick befriends Ally Sheedy and starts the international crisis by pretending while online to be the Soviet Union. After that, it's not hard to predict what's going to happen: government agents swoop in, but the story ends up in the "hands" of machines talking to one another. Thus we're stuck with flashing lights, etc. John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) directs in strict potboiler mode. Children still like this movie, though. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com