'Blackhat' Doesn't Hack It

"BlACKHAT" would be a more interesting movie if it were actually about a black hat. Instead, it's about computer hackers, long a siren's call for filmmakers seeking the ultimate visual challenge.

Latest example: noted wide-screen stylist Michael Mann, eager to make computer activity look exciting. He opens "Blackhat" with an intricate sequence of an electric impulse moving through the circuit boards.

Somewhere, UNIVAC pops a Viagra.

As for the rest of us, we're left to watch an inanimate nano-impulse infiltrate a commodities exchange, where it has a convulsive effect on soybean futures.

I'll repeat that.

Soybean futures.

I don't want to tell Mann, whom I love, how to do his job, but if you want this sequence to engage people, take them inside Jennifer Lawrence's cellphone.

Instead, we get a good, long look at the pec deck of Aussie hunk Chris Hemsworth. He's the "blackhat" procured by the feds (Viola Davis) and a Chinese intelligence officer (Leehom Wang) as part of a plan to go after the soybean hacker.

Thor?

For a desk job?

I was thinking more Kevin Smith in "Live Free or Die Hard."

But Hemsworth's unique skill set is indeed required. He gets into one server by smashing it open with an ax. And, in another scene, gets one step closer to his adversary by beating up three guys in a Korean restaurant.

His display of manliness so impresses another Chinese agent (Wei Tang) that the two immediately start making out, which at least gives Hemsworth a legitimate excuse to have his shirt off. We usually don't spend so much time in movies looking at the naked torso of a computer whiz - surely a good thing.

Keep that hoodie on, Mark. Don't go all Putin on us.

All of this nonsense does provide an excuse for Mann to take his new digital camera to Hong Kong, Macau and Jakarta, and the movie works as a handsome travelogue with a few "Heat" type gunbattles thrown in.

But the movie is morally goofy. First, there is the matter of the World's Most Diabolical Computer Hacker's plan to scam the soybean market for . . . $74 million. Cue Dr. Evil.

"Blackhat" pretends to be aghast at this profiteering. If so, it needs to explain the climactic gun and knife fight, with its lack of concern for Indonesian bystanders and unseemly interest in how much loot the "good" guys retain in their ATMs.

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