I enjoyed this film in its earlier days, when I was a lot younger, and when everyone still operated on the basis that there were red buttons and like-colored telephones in Washington and Moscow, the use of which in a Cold War crisis could determine mankind's fate and survival.
Viewing it now, with modems inserted with land line, full-size, rotary-dialing telephones, and computer hardware (both at the NORAD setting and in Matthew Broderick's bedroom) about a few hundred times heavier than than employed infinitely more efficiently today - it's analogous to watching John Wayne fire WWII bullets pressing the flight stick button on his aircraft, versus the missile launching supersonic planes today.
Given the limitation of even the most advanced equipment a quarter century ago, the way that Dabney Coleman (the computer guru at NORAD), Barry Corbin (the 4-star A.F. general in charge of our nation's defense), and the actor playing the reclusive genius who had created the computer system, were unbelievable, even then, and certainly today.
Ambitious civilians and military seniors - like Coleman and Corbin - would in real life undoubtedly often dislike one another, and likely both be self-centered egomaniacs, probably argue a lot and try to upstage each other. But there is no way they would do so in the childish manner scripted in this opus. But it was fun to watch these two gnaw the scenery like a couple of beavers. Dabney has played the smarmy, ego-maniacal, unctuous character as well as anyone in the history of stage or screen; and Barry Corbin, while having often played more likable characters, is a close runner-up in the "unctuous/smarmy/egocentric" area.)
And the "Falken" character might be reclusive and depressed by his view of mankind's likely doom from the weaponry control systems he had helped create. But his diatribe delivered to Broderick and Sheedy, from his remote Oregon island retreat, while obviously meant to be a message of warning to the viewer, was simply banal and ludicrous.
Also - again, whether viewed "then or now" - the efficiency with which Broderick and Sheedy, individually or together (as a pair of high-schoolers) traveled between their hometown, Colorado, Oregon and back-and-forth) was unbelievable, both in terms of the logistics and monetary costs which would have been involved.
The ease with which Broderick extricated himself from military custody at NORAD (as secure as any facility on the planet) was equally unbelievable. And while we have plenty of evidence today that there are a lot of buffoons at the highest level of government - the personnel portrayed at NORAD were all such doophuses that this was beyond credibility.
But even in 1983, this was more pure science fiction than a portrayal of possible world holocaust. Its enjoyment then was appropriate only on this basis, rather than as a dire warning to mankind. And today, it's solely a relic of a time past.
***Possible spoiler at end***
(At the end, where all of the civilians, military leaders - supposedly the absolutely best-informed, most brilliant in their fields, stood around while Broderick pounded on the NORAD keyboard, providing the expertise to avoid nuclear devastation of the entire planet -- this stretched credibility, even at the science-fiction level, beyond any possible belief.)
And finally, at the very end, the two high-schoolers and all of the NORAD big shots exchange grins, handshakes and tousle one another's hair. This scene doesn't seem to portray what would occur just after (with seconds to spare) world annihilation had been avoided; it seems more like the reaction a bunch of fraternity and sorority members might exhibit after, say, having won the intramural Ultimate Frisbee tournament.
Viewing it now, with modems inserted with land line, full-size, rotary-dialing telephones, and computer hardware (both at the NORAD setting and in Matthew Broderick's bedroom) about a few hundred times heavier than than employed infinitely more efficiently today - it's analogous to watching John Wayne fire WWII bullets pressing the flight stick button on his aircraft, versus the missile launching supersonic planes today.
Given the limitation of even the most advanced equipment a quarter century ago, the way that Dabney Coleman (the computer guru at NORAD), Barry Corbin (the 4-star A.F. general in charge of our nation's defense), and the actor playing the reclusive genius who had created the computer system, were unbelievable, even then, and certainly today.
Ambitious civilians and military seniors - like Coleman and Corbin - would in real life undoubtedly often dislike one another, and likely both be self-centered egomaniacs, probably argue a lot and try to upstage each other. But there is no way they would do so in the childish manner scripted in this opus. But it was fun to watch these two gnaw the scenery like a couple of beavers. Dabney has played the smarmy, ego-maniacal, unctuous character as well as anyone in the history of stage or screen; and Barry Corbin, while having often played more likable characters, is a close runner-up in the "unctuous/smarmy/egocentric" area.)
And the "Falken" character might be reclusive and depressed by his view of mankind's likely doom from the weaponry control systems he had helped create. But his diatribe delivered to Broderick and Sheedy, from his remote Oregon island retreat, while obviously meant to be a message of warning to the viewer, was simply banal and ludicrous.
Also - again, whether viewed "then or now" - the efficiency with which Broderick and Sheedy, individually or together (as a pair of high-schoolers) traveled between their hometown, Colorado, Oregon and back-and-forth) was unbelievable, both in terms of the logistics and monetary costs which would have been involved.
The ease with which Broderick extricated himself from military custody at NORAD (as secure as any facility on the planet) was equally unbelievable. And while we have plenty of evidence today that there are a lot of buffoons at the highest level of government - the personnel portrayed at NORAD were all such doophuses that this was beyond credibility.
But even in 1983, this was more pure science fiction than a portrayal of possible world holocaust. Its enjoyment then was appropriate only on this basis, rather than as a dire warning to mankind. And today, it's solely a relic of a time past.
***Possible spoiler at end***
(At the end, where all of the civilians, military leaders - supposedly the absolutely best-informed, most brilliant in their fields, stood around while Broderick pounded on the NORAD keyboard, providing the expertise to avoid nuclear devastation of the entire planet -- this stretched credibility, even at the science-fiction level, beyond any possible belief.)
And finally, at the very end, the two high-schoolers and all of the NORAD big shots exchange grins, handshakes and tousle one another's hair. This scene doesn't seem to portray what would occur just after (with seconds to spare) world annihilation had been avoided; it seems more like the reaction a bunch of fraternity and sorority members might exhibit after, say, having won the intramural Ultimate Frisbee tournament.