The technology in WarGames has dated somewhat (just look at the cranky old eighties computers), but this is still a cracking teen thriller.
Matthew Broderick (probably better known to younger viewers as the voice of Simba in The Lion King, although we’ll always think of him as Ferris Bueller) stars as David Lightman, a young whiz kid who accidentally hacks into a US government computer. He finds a game there called Global Thermonuclear War and starts to play, unaware that’s it’s not a game at all and in fact he has started a program that will play out a global attack for real.
It’s gripping stuff, as government official John McKittrick (Coleman) desperately tries to stop the world from coming to an end, and Broderick makes for an appealing computer geek gradually realising the humungous scale of his mistake.
Is WarGames suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
The idea that the end of the world could be coming may scare younger viewers.
If you like this, why not try: The Skulls, Tron, Tron: Legacy, Red Dawn, Flight Of The Navigator,