A gifted young hacker named David, portrayed by Matthew Broderick, boasts to his girlfriend Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) about his abilities—improving her grades and arranging a luxurious trip to Paris for them. While demonstrating this, he unknowingly connects with a phone line seeking someone to participate in a game: a simulation of nuclear war. Soon after, news reports detail the activation of American military defenses, and David’s phone rings again; it's the computer, eager to continue its game, leaving him feeling genuinely frightened. His fear intensifies when federal agents arrive, leading him to a classified location where he must explain to a scientist named McKittrick how he inadvertently accessed a system seemingly intent on triggering World War III—and no one knows how to shut it down. The question becomes whether he can devise a solution before the increasingly frustrated Gen. Beringer (Barry Corbin) initiates DEFCON 1 and destroys everything. This film offers enjoyable science-fiction entertainment, with strong performances from Broderick, Sheedy, and Corbin, but also acts as a cautionary tale, similar to “The Forbin Project” from 1970. It highlights the potential risks of relying on computers for our defenses and delegating critical thinking tasks to machines. A computer’s reasoning is fundamentally simplistic; more complex, balanced, or subtle considerations require something beyond pure logic—like the perspective of a hormonal teenager and some straightforward rational thought.

Source on TMDB