How do you get Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman on the same movie set and make something so tepid? Also, how do you create a film called Paranoia and not drive your hero to such a disheveled state of suspicion and mistrust that no one would want him, even if he does look like Thor’s little brother? As a film, Paranoia plays like mid-90s efforts like The Net or Virtuosity, dabbling in a technology and worldview that the filmmakers seem ill-equipped to understand.
The year’s news seemed prime to play into the film’s themes; after all, it’s easy to be paranoid when we know that the government is ready, willing and capable to watch us all, all the time. Also, we know that corporations carry, in some sense, even more power than governments right now, so it’s not too far of a stretch to spin a conspiracy with a simple everyman caught between two rival corporate titans. But Paranoia’s real crime is that it squanders the on-screen re-match between Air Force One adversaries Ford and Oldman. As for Liam Hemsworth, he needs to really decide if the best way to set himself apart from his more famous big bro is to be the poor man’s Channing Tatum.