Another Bad Idea for a Remake: Wargames

Cinema Blend reports that a remake of the Matthew Broderick film “Wargames” is in the works, possibly with Ansel Elgort or Tye Sheridan in the lead role.  This is an awful idea.  What made WarGames so popular in 1983 was how prescient it was. The set, at the time the most expensive ever built, was so far ahead of its time that the supposed computer graphics on all of the monitors were actually old-school animation. The idea of a kid being able to hack into a government computer — even the idea of government computers being used to launch missiles — and the consequences of the new world of networking were all fascinating.  It will be impossible to re-create that sense of revolutionary change.

It will also be impossible to top Broderick’s performance.  Sheridan and Elgort are terrific actors, but they do not have his comic timing or puppy-dog appeal.

By the way, I recommend The Internet’s Own Boy, which describes one real-life scary consequence of the original “Wargames” film, the enactment of vastly overbroad and poorly constructed laws to prevent the kind of hacking Broderick’s character did.