Minahzur Rahman This movie was a good one. The Net is one of these few computer-based movies I watched several times. The Net is another one of these wonderful 90s films we were blessed with. I'd say that because back then, computers really started to take-off, and everyone was starting to get obsessed with getting their hands on these wonderful or amazing machines. But at the same time, these computers has its downsides, and this movie (The Net) showed it. If you were to watch The Net back then, you would probably have felt very worried about the dangers of computers, internet, technology etc. Yes, the movie has its flaws and all that, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying this movie. Sandra Bullock was a great choice to play her character, and I don't think anyone else could've done it any better. Whatever success this film had, it was all due to her. A good time to be released as well.

John Hope Why a rating of 5? Because 10 stars go to to Sandra's black bikini... To be more precise, to Sandra's wonderful body and her amazing face shot in close up. 0 stars go to everything else, especially the way they present software. I suppose that the at the time Apple managers sponsored the film, just to destroy their own brand: A computer network that's so easy to hack and that lies about everything was not the best way to promote Apple... Thanks God Steve Jobs returned back and stopped immediately those ultra expensive, self destroying ad campaigns. If you love Sandra Bullock, watch this movie, it's worth it. Otherwise forget it.

seymourblack-1 The mid-1990's was an exciting time when the use of the Internet grew rapidly and it became obvious to everyone that it would soon affect virtually every area of human activity. Alongside the excitement, however, many anxieties were expressed about the potential dangers involved and many of these feature in this movie which presents the kind of nightmare scenario that many people feared. Identity theft, a breakdown of social interaction and cyber-terrorism were all recognised threats and are used to good effect in "The Net" to create a fast-moving thriller that was very topical at the time of its release but now inevitably looks dated.Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) is a computer analyst who works at her home in Venice, California where she identifies and eliminates viruses in programs that are sent to her by San Francisco software company, "Cathedral Systems". When one of her colleagues sends her a program that makes it easy to access and modify data held by government departments, airports, hospitals and banks etc, she's told that he'll soon be travelling down to her home to work with her on the program. Shortly after, he's killed in a plane crash and so she continues with her original plan to go on vacation to Mexico and takes her laptop and a disk containing the new program that she'd been asked to work on.In Mexico, she meets a smooth-talking man called Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam) who seduces her but is really only interested in stealing her disk and killing her. When this becomes obvious, Angela manages to escape but after returning home, discovers that her house has been put up for sale and her identity has been swapped with a woman called Ruth Marks who's apparently a criminal wanted by the police. It swiftly becomes evident that Angela's being pursued by a group of cyber-terrorists called "The Praetorians" and the police and can't prove her real identity because she has, for many years, led a reclusive lifestyle in which her only regular face-to-face contact was with her mother who has Alzheimer's disease.The only person that Angela knows who could confirm her identity is her ex-psychiatrist and ex-lover, Dr Alan Champion (Dennis Miller) and although he provides some help, he's soon prevented from getting Angela out of her nightmare and she remains on the run until she eventually confronts Devlin for the final time.There are plenty of chases and well-executed action sequences in "The Net" and Hitchcockian influences such as , the wrong man (woman) theme, the fairground motif and confused identities as well as a disk that becomes the MacGuffin, add extra interest. The power of the terrorists seems overwhelming and an atmosphere of paranoia prevails when amongst other things, the modification of key computer records result in the deaths of a prominent politician, a hospital patient and a software expert who's piloting a plane.The focus throughout the entire story is on Sandra Bullock's character and her skill in making herself convincingly introverted and work-obsessed plays a huge part in the success of this movie as she outshines everyone else who appears in it.

Jackson Booth-Millard Following her first big role in Demolition Man, and her big boost in Speed, the leading actress was getting bigger, so obviously the filmmakers wanted to cash in on her popularity at the time, so came this tekkie movie, from director Irwin Winkler (De-Lovely). Basically in Venice, California is computer expert and a systems and software analyst Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock), she works from home for Cathedral Software as a contract employee, and as she mostly communicates online and by telephone she has interpersonal relationships and hardly any with people, even her own mother (Diane Baker) who suffers Alzheimer's disease. A new security system called "Gatekeeper" is becoming universally used, it seems it will thrive for Cathedral in the computer software world as they created it, there also appears on a Cathedral game to be a virus, and a "π" (Pi) symbol appears on the systems occasionally, but Angela is ready for a vacation in Cozumel, Mexico. There she meets suave Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam), he is not all he seems though, as he pays a mugger to steal Angela's purse to take the disk out of it, following a romantic night together on a speedboat she finds his gun and realises he was going to kill her, she steals back the disk and escapes in a dinghy, but she collides with the rocks, destroying the disk and falling unconscious for three days. Angela wakes up and finds that all records of her identity have been deleted, someone checked her out of the hotel, her car is missing, her credit cards are invalid, her house is for sale, and her social security number is under the name "Ruth Marx", her name appears under a number of criminal offences. Another woman has taken her identity, the impostor offers to give her the life she had stolen back in exchange for the disk, which of course no longer exists, the only person she knows could help her get things back to normal, who recognises her facially, is her psychiatrist and former lover Alan Champion (Dennis Miller). With Angela's knowledge of computer systems she uses a password she found in Devlin's wallet and goes to Bethesda Naval Hospital to access confidential records, finding out a conspiracy and about cyberterrorists and hackers the "Praetorians", of course she is tracked along the way by Devlin, working as a contract killer for the cyberterrorists. There is a point where she is arrested due to the crimes listed on her changed records, but she manages to escape, but she is now accused of murder, so she has to rush to prove her innocence and release evidence of the corrupt security system incidents, it is at a computer convention that she accesses the systems once again, while Devlin and the impostor Ruth Marx (Wendy Gazelle) search for her. By the time they find Angela she has already sent all the evidence she gained to the FBI, and she is able to trick Devlin into erasing her false identity, chasing her he unintentionally shoots dead Ruth Marx, and she sprays a fire extinguisher causing him to fall from a catwalk to his death, the film ends with Angela reuniting with her mother and life going back to normal. Also starring Ken Howard as Michael Bergstrom, Ray McKinnon as Dale Hessman, Daniel Schorr as WNN Anchor, L. Scott Caldwell as Public Defender, Robert Gossett as Ben Phillips and Margo Winkler, Irvin's wife as Mrs. Raines. Bullock certainly proves a good choice being the originally lonely computer geek turned innocent fugitive breaking into a number of computers to sort herself out, and it is likely that this was made to coincide with the popularising of the internet, but Northum is rather wooden as the villain, the story is a little overcomplicated and confusing at times, and it could have been a little more pacey and have more frantic hide and seek style chases, but it is near watchable enough, an alright thriller. Okay!