WarGames

Quite possibly Badham's best work. That's right, even better than Ingognito, ever slicker than Bird on a Wire - I know, you're not convinced, reading that sentence back I'm not convinced but Wargames is a throughly enjoyable celebration of Nuclear War and deserves your sincere admiration.

 Wargames has always been a favourite of mine. Most small boys, as Gary Glitter once observed, are enamoured by computers and the Games tapped into that at a time when the emerging home computer market was prepping a generation for the internet and the game playing possibilities it would allow, though many of us would be swapping missiles for breasts by that stage.

 Yes, this is a smart, cleverly written anti-war movie in which likable characters meet serious hardware and for a brief moment we all get to be Matthew Broderick and actually like the experience. He's a genial hero, a bit wet behind the ears and a wee bit of an underachiever which is good for the purposes of identification with this particular strand of the audience.

 Good support too from the ever reliable Dabney Coleman, the underrated John Wood as the wide eyed Professor Falken and Barry Corbin who as the put upon General Beringer almost steals the show. You'll say the technology has dated and you'd be right obviously. Who'd have thought it?

 The only winning move is not to play? Not a bit of it, you should play this one immediately.