SANDRA BULLOCK IN THE NET

year: 1995 cast: Sandra Bullock, Dennis Miller  rating: *1/2

It’s 1995 and Hollywood needs to warn you about something very dangerous. A device that could put your identity and life at risk… Especially vulnerable are women who, despite staying indoors and always working on their computer, resemble magazine models. Enter Sandra Bullock in this hilariously dated thriller that does for The Internet what REEFER MADNESS did for marijuana. Only this isn't half as fun.

Bullock plays a reclusive computer hacker – but a good hacker who, after saving a virus on a floppy disc for her doomed friend, winds up being hunted by… Let’s go back a few steps: While vacationing in the tropics, Bullock meets a handsome rogue that smooth-talks her onto a boat. After a quick tryst he tries killing her: and the chase is on. From one boring situation to the next, Bullock fights to retrieve her identity that’s been replaced with a fictional woman with a criminal record.

Never mind iconic producer Irwin Winker’s stale direction is loaded with unnecessary close-ups and clumsy action sequences, or the hollow side-characters (including Dennis Miller’s bearded pill popping nice guy), this is all about an overacting Bullock trying to redeem herself, eventually using her techie skills to turn the table on two villains whose motivations are never quite clear. Then again neither is the point of this movie – other than Hollywood not trusting something they didn’t completely control... Yet!