It’s hard to make typing riveting, especially for two hours. This is why most hacker movies – for lack of a better word – suck.

Richard Loncraine’s Firewall thankfully steers mostly clear of the with-exciting-music-even-watching-people-type-is-exhilarating mentality. But though it clears that hurdle, there are plenty more it blunders through.

The film stars Harrison Ford as Jack Stanfield, vice president of security at a banking firm in the Seattle area. Bad guys, headed by some British guy named Bill Cox (Paul Bettany at his most charming and diabolical), hold his family hostage while Jack hacks into his own security system to get Cox $100 million. There’s no Ocean’s 11-type heist, which is unfortunate for the audience and the studio.

The story thankfully doesn’t take long to start, and the pacing is fairly even. There are even a few suspenseful moments involving a toy racecar and an escape attempt. But the writing makes the characters almost cartoonish. Bettany pulls it off, possibly because he’s British, but more likely because he’s talented.

Ford tries to emote, but he just ends up looking like he needs his Metamucil. Long gone are the days when merely his presence onscreen was enough. And while he has my undying love and respect for Indiana Jones and Star Wars, he’s just way too old to be convincingly kicking Bettany’s ass.

Virginia Madsen is a waste as Beth, Jack’s architect wife. She gets to add “can play cool, collected mom” to her skills list, but at the expense of having to utter garbage like, “Let’s think about something nice,” to her two annoying children.

Because I know just enough about my laptop to make sure it doesn’t spontaneously combust, any errors in computer lingo went under my radar. However, one young man sitting in front of me shook his head violently at one point and started muttering angrily, so if you found yourself offended by Swordfish, perhaps you might want to skip this one.

– Oriana Schwindt