DVD Review: Mann’s ‘Blackhat’ falls flat

In “Blackhat,” Michael Mann — director of “Heat,” “Collateral,” and “The Insider” — takes a shot at the cyber thriller and misses the target altogether. The result is either his worst film or at least a contender for the title.

When a hacker brings down a nuclear power plant, the Feds must spring Nick (Chris Hemsworth, looking just as comfortable as a human instead of a Norse god) from prison, since he wrote some of the core routines of the software that did the job and understands it better than anyone else in the world. He is teamed with Chen Dawai (Leehom Wang), an old school chum, and Dawai’s sister, Chen Lien (Wei Tang). Nick and Lien look at each other and romance blooms within a ridiculously short time.

“Blackhat” has all the built-in problems of cyber thrillers. Every time our protagonists sit down, Nick’s agile fingers tapping away on the keyboard, things get kind of dull. Luckily Nick is two-fisted as well as 10-fingered, so there are lots of fight scenes — most of which feel shoehorned in.

The characters regularly spout computer jargon, explaining to us what they’re doing. (If you can follow it, you probably already knew enough not to need exposition.) Tracking the villain, they jump around among Macau, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Malaysia, for reasons they explain to themselves so they won’t have to address the audience directly. And, after a buildup of more than two hours, you get to the big climax, and... there’s nothing. The bad guy is just... you know... this guy, and his identity hasn’t been set up in a way that has any impact on us.

It’s hard to think of any other A-list director who’s embraced digital cinematography more enthusiastically than Mann, so “Blackhat” looks natural in its Blu-ray transfer. The disc includes three “featurettes,” covering the computer issues, the locations and the characters.

Blackhat (Universal Home Entertainment, Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, $34.98; DVD, $29.98)

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ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).