Chris Hemsworth is largely a household name mostly thanks to his involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thor, but his resume boasts an impressive array of titles in addition to the God of Thunder. But while action-thrillers are definitely Hemsworth’s game, not all of his films have been runaway hits with critics or fans. Blackhat, the 2015 action flick starring Hemsworth as Nicholas Hathaway, a convicted computer hacker tasked with helping the FBI track down a hacker responsible for blowing up a nuclear power plant, is one such film, but, seemingly out of the blue, it has found a second life on Netflix.
Blackhat, directed by Michael Mann, was a box-office disaster, merely making $19 million against its significantly larger $70 million budget. The premise of the film seems interesting enough, though many critics cited poor pacing as one of the movie’s general takeaways, in addition to a cast that lacked chemistry. Despite having box-office heavy hitter Hemsworth as its leading man, Blackhat just couldn’t seem to land on its feet amongst moviegoers.
However, much to the surprise of movie lovers and consumers of online content, Blackhat was added to the Netflix library on February 16, quickly rising to popularity and becoming the top trending movie on the streaming giant this week. It might seem strange that a film that performed poorly at the box office — and is listed by Rotten Tomatoes with a 32 percent rating — is now Netflix’s top trending picture, but given the fan frenzy for anything Hemsworth-related, it isn’t much of a surprise.
Hemsworth has become synonymous with the MCU — and action-thriller pictures — thanks to his turn as the God of Thunder, Thor Odinson. While a fourth Thor picture is on the way from Marvel, fans wanting to get their Hemsworth fix not wanting to wait until July to see the latest installment in his Asgardian saga have jumped at the chance to rewatch his filmography, Blackhat included.
Blackhat’s premise should seem terrifying enough — the idea that someone could hack into the world’s nuclear power plants and disable some of the most destructive powers on earth with devastating results would be downright catastrophic. But despite having this as the plot for, Blackhat still fell short. Some critics argue Mann’s oftentimes grandiose approach to his films has the tendency to feel cookie-cutter and familiar in a formulaic sense. Mann knows how to craft a good action flick, but somewhere along the way, the pacing of Blackhat fell off, resulting in a film that was a bit too long with no real climax.
That hasn’t stopped its resurgence to the top of Netflix’s trending list, though. Thanks to the birth of the online streaming age, many films from the early 2000s and 2010s are seeing a sort of rebirth thanks to platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+. And with such an extensive library at their fingertips, it’s easy for movie fans to tear through titles, and one like Blackhat featuring a Hollywood heavyweight like Chris Hemsworth is enough to grab the attention of any Marvel fan or action lover.
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