Chris Hemsworth is a Brilliant Hacker in Blackhat Trailer

Posted on September 26, 2014

Chris Hemsworth stars in the first trailer for Michael Mann's new thriller Blackhat. He plays Nicholas Hathaway a brilliant computer hacker who is currently in prison serving a 15 year sentence.

When a vicious terrorist group launches a devastating series of attacks using computers, the U.S. government agrees to commute Hathaway's sentence in exchange for his help in finding and stopping the terrorists. Working with U.S. and Chinese agents, Hathaway hops the globe trying to get ahead of the smartest foe he's ever faced online.

The trailer opens by showing how connected our world really is. From financial markets to nuclear reactors, everything modern society relies upon is vulnerable to a cyberattack. A network of brilliant -- and apparently sociopathic -- hackers takes down a Chinese nuclear reactor. The footage in the trailer is disturbing, given our all too real knowledge of what happened at the Japanese Fukashima reactor. That was not terrorism and the reactors did not crumble, but the results were still devastating. The film's villain or villains are not shown in the trailer. Mann says that they can't figure out the motive for the attacks which seems to be random. No one takes responsibility for the attacks. The point seems to be that the perpetrator is getting off on a power trip. He can get to anyone, anywhere in the world. No one is safe.

Viola Davis, Tang Wei, and Wang Leehom co-star in the film. Michael Mann, the director of such films as Heat, Collateral, The Insider and Public Enemies, co-wrote the script with Morgan Davis Foehl. The film hits theaters on January 16, 2015. Take a look:

CHRIS HEMSWORTH