Blackhat

Turns out Chris Hemsworth isn't all that interesting when you take away his hammer, strip off his cape or disguise that bitchin' Australian accent. He's actually quite the dullard. Or such is the case in this film, an atrocious cyberspace thriller from the normally reliable director Michael Mann (Heat, Public Enemies). Hemsworth plays Nick Hathaway, a hacker convict doing time in a maximum-security prison. When a hack job leads to an explosion at a nuclear power plant in China, authorities let Nick out of prison under the condition he find the hacker and save the day. If he fails to find the hacker, it's back to prison, where his hair will still look spectacular despite not having access to premium hair care products. Upon leaving prison, Nick instantly becomes some sort of super detective. Joining forces with Chinese former roommate Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang), Nick can shoot bad guys and beat the crap out of attackers in a restaurant even though he lacks any real training. I guess doing some years in a big prison automatically makes you sharp with a Glock and hand-to-hand combat. Most hackers lack Nick's innate super detective skills, but they will kick your ass in Call of Duty and Snickers eating contests. It's early, but I'm going to go ahead and say that I hated this enough to suspect it will make my list for worst films of 2015. If it doesn't, bravo to those 10 idiots who manage to make movies more moronic than this one in the next 11 months. That, in a sad way, will be a significant achievement.