Garnering a measly 5%, that’s barely one star, on Rotten Tomatoes, the 2013 mega-flop Paranoia is a film that I watched so you wouldn’t have to. Believe me, even with vets like Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford, and even an appearance from Richard Dreyfuss, this film is barely worth taking up space in your Netflix queue. I remember seeing posters for this Liam Hemsworth vehicle all along the NYC subways system and didn’t give it a second thought until today. During a Google Hangout with the super-tech dudes from Pocketnow.com, they mentioned the movie, and the wheels in my head started remembering those posters from the subway. So, thanks to the tech gurus at Pocketnow for the idea.
Now, I’m all for a good tech movie, and I love thrillers, but this is just ridiculous. Tech gurus will probably grit their teeth at this train wreck. It ended up feeling like a parody, as if the creators of SNL took a fake trailer and made an actual movie. From the weird time lapses in the opening credits, to the vast array of smart phones with bad CGI, to poor Richard Dreyfuss’ makeup, this whole movie is a mess. Don’t even get me started on the dialogue. If I was given this script for an audition, I’d be like, “NOPE. Nope nope.” There were moments where it felt like a weird rip-off of Good Will Hunting, Boiler Room, or even the more recent Wolf of Wall Street, with its stock, predictable characters. The ONLY redeemable quality of this film is when either Gary Oldman or Harrison Ford (or both) are on screen, and that’s not enough time for either of them. Liam Hemsworth does enough “I sold my soul for the corner office” bit to last a lifetime and gets a bit redundant. I basically rolled my eyes at the screen the whole time. Pair that with a pointless love angle, and well, I wanted to throw up more than once at the stupidity of the dialogue and plot not making sense anymore. I was paranoid that I was missing the point of the movie by the end. But hey, at least the gadgets were nice…
For some real tech experts, and awesome YouTube videos, check out the guys at Pocketnow.com. Unlike the filmmakers and screenwriters of Paranoia, these guys actually know what they’re talking about.