a review of 金钱强强滚

The First $20 Million is Always The Hardest is... a lot of things.  It's terribly written, disgustingly edited, poorly acted and aged like milk mere months after its release. It also had a hilariously apt title as, almost 20 years after its release, it -still- (reportedly) has not made back its $17 Million Dollar Budget. so. you know. The First $20M really is the hardest. But for all it's flaws-- and it's about 87% flaws-- when I first watched it as a young, wide-eyed and hopeful preteen, there was one element of the story that would stick with me for years.

[For clarity, I know this film was based on a Novel that, from what I understand, is better than the movie in that it's ... actually good. But I haven't read the novel and this isn't a novel v. movie situation. For the sake of focus, I'm basing my opinions entirely on the film adaptation. Okay.]

I've been obsessed with some form or another of what is this film's macguffin. You see, the film's plot really kicks in when Andy, our protagonist, is tasked with what is largely seen as a pointless task, a futile mission-- the creation of a $99 PC. And so we follow our ragtag group of nerds on their adventure as they explore ways to cut costs by eliminating elements of the then traditional desktop workstation, rethinking others, and coming up with entirely new technology. Alliances are formed, new friends bond and a love interest emerges that is, shocking for the time, not just a prop, in then-rising star Rosario Dawson. Dumb-story-short, and Spoiler alert-- they do it. They create a Personal Computer that costs just $99. Then, in what would become a real-life normal over the next decade, the massive Corporation (funding their initial startup efforts) swoops in, stops the project cold and will attempt to flip the $99 Computer developed by our protagonists for massive profits, at $999 a pop. But in a 3rd-act miracle, the team develops a newer, faster and smaller version of the EMagi (again, dumb movie), expose the villain for his greedy vulture behavior on the big launch day and, win, i guess. It's all a little silly, but really, harmless fun, when it's not cripplingly cringe-inducing. Like it's characters, it's bad you can root for. It's one of those terrible movies I have a soft spot for. Call me romantic but I like an underdog story that shits on corporations and corporate types. And while the idea of a holographic, multitouch, high performing portable fleshlight PC selling for $100 is as unrealistic in 2020 as it was in 2002, the idea of a world-changing, internet-breaking $100 computer remains one of those simple huge ideas I'll always be obsessed with.