Though lacking in character development, Tom Clancy novels are superb for their plot intricacies and fervent attention to detail. The Hunt for Red October -- the best film adaptation of the Jack Ryan series thus far -- still stands as my favorite film of all time.Like any writer sensing opportunity, Clancy decided to franchise his name to such series as Op Center and Net Force. Op Center was actually a surprisingly "OK" TV mini-series, thanks to the efforts of Harry Hamlin and Lindsay Frost. Net Force, however, is a total disaster.It's difficult even to establish blame. While the notion of an Internet investigations division of the FBI sounds appealing (isn't the Secret Service in fact charged with this responsibility?), everything in Op Center is ludicrous. The sophomoric romantic storyline of Bakula and Going, the uber Bill Gates villain played by Judge Reinhold, and the Kris Kristofferson (Can you believe he was in fact a Rhodes Scholar and former Army pilot??) dead mentor with a secret -- all of this just defies conventional wisdom or reality.Without belaboring the point, Net Force is just plain not entertaining.

I have never seen such an atrocious pathetic attempt at a crime thriller. The complete ignorance to the truth of the way computers and the internet work was only one of the poor elements of this film, but it managed to disappoint in every other aspect as well. The story was contrived and uninteresting. The characters were plastic and unconvincing. The manufactured suspense was nothing more than frustrating and annoying. Had there been any research done on the factual basis of this story, there may have been some interesting thread, but as any intelligent person who has even the slightest understanding of how technology or the internet works, this movie is an obvious farce. Even with only the expectation of an average fictional "techno-phobic" type story, I was disappointed by the lack of any real original content. Of all my experience of Tom Clancy's work, this is the worst and most disappointing example I have ever encountered. Even on the larger scale, this movie is one of the worst, hopeless, disgraceful, and offensive efforts I have ever had the misfortune to witness and endure. The worst 2 dollars I have ever spent.

This movie is actually pretty watchable if you are a bit technical and don't mind viewing a film to laugh at its inherent badness. The script repeatedly uses networking lingo out of context and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of networking principles. My favorite scene is when they're searching logs for traces of a computer break-in and the hero exclaims when no traces are found "There's not even a cookie?!?". I expect even a non-tech should be able to find a couple of laughs about the overwhelming lack of technical advisement. Some understanding of distributed attacks and viruses might have helped, but I guess the idea of two hackers trying to out type each other works better for Hollywood. The cinematography is low-average for a made for TV. I liked Judge Reinhold's acting, and Kris Kristofferson, Bakula I found to be often flat or alternately overacted. Conclusion: Don't rent it unless you're into bad movies, worth catching on Cable on a slow day.

I read the book long before I heard about the movie, and given past history with books being translated into movies, I expected NetForce to suck but hoped it didn't. Well, it sucks big time. I was hoping for something remotely close to the book, which it is... for about 10 minutes or so, until Steve Day is assassinated. Then, after that, it bears no resemblance to the book. I was disappointed, but based on my expectations, not THAT disappointed. 3 out of 10