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  • Writer's pictureMatt B. Livingstone

Outbreak is SO 90s: The Net


How you text in 1995


As I’m sure everyone knows, we’re kind of in the middle of this pandemic thing and we’re all pretty much staying at home as much as possible right now. For many of us, watching movies will be a major way to pass the time for those of us not binge watching TV shows or obsessively playing online games. So I’ve decided to watch a bunch of films from the 90s, primarily films I haven’t seen since the 90s or in a long ass time in general. I’m going to do a mini-review based on how they’ve held up with a bit of recollecting on the past.



The Net was one of those films I feel like everyone in the mid-90s watched. Paranoia thrillers were huge in the 90s and while The Net isn’t the best of them, it’s one of the more prescient thrillers of its time. The idea of using the internet to steal someone’s identity and hack medical files and gather personal information on people was a very new and frightening thing when this movie was released. Not only is the stealing of identities and personal information ordinary dangers of life these days, but hundreds of millions of people willingly put most of their personal information out there. When Bullock’s character Angela Bennett is describing how the bad guys know what movies she watches or what cigarettes she used to smoke, she assumes they hacked into her credit card statements when in 2020 you could just check out their Facebook or Twitter!

Early internet chat makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Look at those emoticons!


Back in 1995 I was one of the few households in my area with the internet. I remember the Jurassic Park website taking 15+ minutes to load and I remember using mIRC when it launched in 1995: I made a channel called “Game Tips” and I would just copy what Game Sages said (I still use that url to access IGN) and people thought I was a really smart gamer and not a ten year old kid. A movie like The Net, which was exaggerated yet not overly far-fetched, must’ve played differently for me than some 40 year old woman who had never touched a computer…it must’ve seemed like a science fiction horror movie to those people. When you compare this movie to Hackers, in all its campy goodness, it’s clear this one is far more rooted in reality. But it is interesting how films of the time had to visualize the internet for totally ignorant audiences.


As will be a running theme in any of these reviews, Sandra Bullock was one of my 90s crushes as a kid so I was watching anything with her in it (even Practical Magic, yuck!), but The Net is one of her best films from 90s and it still holds up well. Roger Ebert in his review talked about believable she is an actress and he was right on the money. Even though the film is more about plot twists and thrills than a character study, Bullock really finds a way to make you care about Angela Bennett through her tone and delivery and her expressions. We accept the film as more realistic simply because of her performance that makes it all feel more real. She’s one of the actresses who can elevate material, and she’s a joy to watch in The Net.

A literal pioneer woman.


And really, Sandra Bullock is why you’re watching this film. She’s almost always on screen and she lures you in with her vulnerability while impressing us with her gumption, and she even makes us believe she could be a 90s hacker! She saw that ‘learn to code’ meme coming miles away! Jeremy Northam as the villain is quite effective too. He’s the sort of villain that was popular in the 90s, the slick, smart foreign man who was handsome and charming to lure people in like a spider, and maybe the reason why he totally vanished as an actor was because we got tired of that kind of role. Dennis Miller in his limited role is fine, I guess. He does bring the movie up in the middle with his unique energy where it otherwise might’ve sagged.


The Net offers a cozy look back at the internet before it exploded that so few of us actually remember. It also offers some genuinely suspenseful scenes that function well simply as a paranoia thriller. For many years now I assumed this movie would’ve aged terribly because the technology would be so dated and the ideas in it would seem so antiquated by today’s standards. I was surprised to find that outside of the obvious technological advancements, it’s still a serviceable thriller helmed by an actress who elevated the material to the point where it still holds up 25 years later. I think people who have never seen it could still enjoy it, but if it’s been decades since you watched it, check it out again. I was glad I did! At the very least, the throwback to the childhood of the internet might make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.


Plus she plays Wolfenstein! WOLFENSTEIN! How can you not love this woman?



NOTE: I apologize for not having a new South Park Ranked up in the past month. Between some family stuff, being pretty sick for a week, and now all the Coronavirus stuff, I just couldn't really get into the mindset to write them. I do plan on getting back to work in them now that I'm settling into this whole social distancing mumbo jumbo. I will attempt to make up for lost time with those.

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