Fantastic!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Blistering performances.

This was one of the most enlightening documentaries I've seen in recent years; it was also one of the most disturbing films I've seen in a long time. I had no idea how far into the age of cyberwarfare we already are, and how serious the consequences of this kind of conflict already can be. If you're a conspiracy theorist or otherwise prone to paranoia, don't watch this - but if you want to learn some of the darker secrets most government agencies try to shield our fragile little minds from, and if you want to know some hard truths about what's possible and what's already happening in terms of cyberattacks, I highly recommend this excellent documentary. 9 stars out of 10.Favorite films: IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: imdb.com/list/ls075552387/Lesser-Known Masterpieces: imdb.com/list/ls070242495/Favorite Low-Budget and B-Movies: imdb.com/list/ls054808375/

Zero Days is my latest review. It begins with a car exploding and a creepy, modulated voice speaking (hello "lawnmower man"). That's the vein of its excitement. At nearly two hours, this is a overly talky documentary, bent on chronicling the Stuxnet computer virus and how it posed a threat to Internet access all over the world. Stuxnet was a malicious worm. It involved the nuclear proclamations of the U.S. and Iran. Sadly, an insurance seminar is "Zero's" equivalent. A college disquisition is its symposium. This is painstakingly educational stuff. Director Alex Gibney takes his account all the way from 1979's Iranian flag burning to said Stuxnet Trojan Horse in 2010. His docu skills aren't sloppy yet his flick crawls around in circles. Zero Days is very thought-out, very calculated, soberly streamlined, and intelligent to a fault. It gets to the point where Gibney makes Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, and Steve James out to look like slipshod artists. In truth, you wonder if he actually required multiple takes with the real-life experts he was talking to. Now does Alex keep his audience alert to his conspiracies, his swift ending, his relentless use of news archives, and his barrage of uniform, cinematic techniques? That remains to be seen. Does his methods channel his elongated film to accrue true greatness? Not exactly.Alex "I'm taking vigorous notes" Gibney fills the screen with lots of interviews (people are either not revealing much or hiding their faces), locales all over the world, slight visual storytelling, and images of code with Matrix-like tendencies. He goes off on tangents, even projecting an ocular segment akin to Blade Runner's cityscape. Ugh. In jest, there's almost too much information to take in. I'm no dummy but I was a bit addled. The eerie musical score helps a little but whatever entertainment value exists, it could only satisfy hardcore, cyber geeks. Oh and I almost forgot, Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush are all in the cast credits. Too bad you never really hear from them based on their scattershot, newsreel appearances. Rating: 2 and a half stars.

Though I do not doubt this is an excellent piece of research as well as expose, it's a bit overwhelming for someone not very savvy, thus interested in technology. It's not that the film is too complicated in terminology or scope, but that it is very detailed and thus quite long. This requires a certain degree of interest, as previously stated, and a mature patience. If one is both interested and patient there is a lot to ponder here as this film gets into what actually happened in the what could be the first cyber attack of a certain nations particular nuclear related infrastructure by the combination of several united in purpose nations. This is huge in this regard since the attack was quite successful. Just beware that this is in no way entertainment (it's investigative and educational...even revelatory) and certainly not for casual viewing.

Saw this at the Berlinale 2016, where it was programmed as part of the official Competition section. I have to start with a full disclaimer, by confessing that information security has been my full time occupation for at least 25 years. As such it was not my intention to learn something new when viewing this documentary about the infamous Stuxnet worm, jointly developed by Israel and US, targeting Iranian reactors and obstructing the production of nuclear material. Yet I'm very interested in each and every vehicle (movie, book, newspaper article, whatever) to make non-IT people aware of the issues at hand, if only to provide material for an open debate about the pros and cons of "cyber warfare" with much wider implications than the average layman realizes.As observed with previous movies about IT-related issues (WikiLeaks, Snowden, Steve Jobs etcetera) it is very difficult to sit it through while being (like myself) someone who worked in IT all his life. We saw numerous fragments of Assembler, flashing lights from network equipment, heavily populated cable bundles, and many screens showing various sorts of abracadabra, all supposedly intending to look technical for an average layman. Another problem is that several talking heads ducked when asked specific questions about Stuxnet, the latter being the main topic of this movie. Most of them had the usual excuse *Even when I knew about it, I cannot elaborate". Luckily, we heard not once the excuse "I can tell you about it but after that I have to shoot you", usually intended as a humorous escape from hot questions without appearing offensive or overly defiant. Several high ranking officials only wanted to speak out in general terms, thereby avoiding Stuxnet and other concrete projects, by explaining what they found wrong, especially about the secrecy that most found exaggerated and unnecessary. As such, their contributions were still useful, albeit not exactly touching the subject at hand.Nevertheless, I heard a few new things I had not thought about yet. Firstly, Stuxnet was not designed to become so visible as it did. People at the NSA were furious when seeing that Israel extended v1.1 of the software to be more aggressive, making it spread and allowing it to surface, while that never had been the intention. The net result is that other countries may find justification to counter with similar software, now the US has provided for a precedent. Secondly, many people in CIA and NSA express their concerns about over-classification, preventing an open debate on future policies and rules of engagement in cyber space, like similar rules developed in the past for army, navy and air force. Cyber weapons are the fourth category, and it may take 20 to 30 years to create clear rules and policies for it. Lastly, the net effect that Stuxnet had on Iranian nuclear program, has proved to be negligible in the long run. There was a noticeable dip in the production statistics, but it triggered Iran to invest extra in centrifuges. An extra side effect was that Iran invested in cyber powers of their own, by attracting talented people on this field of expertise. As of now, it looks like they succeeded in overpowering the western world in this so-called cyber war. In other words, due to Stuxnet we lost our head start, and it is doubtful we will ever regain that.There was one talking head with distorted voice and face, who appeared many times throughout the story. In hindsight, she was reading collected texts from several people working in NSA, CIA etcetera, all of them having useful insights on the matter but unable to come forward. Being reasonably versed in these issues, I am of the opinion that these texts sound genuine and seem to really come from people with intimate knowledge, which would otherwise be kept from the public. One example is that they internally made fun about "air gapped", the common defense against infections from the outside. They knew several ways to get over this obstacle, e.g. by infecting vendors responsible for installing and updating software in the plant, more or less working like so-called watering hole attacks. Reading these texts as done here, was an artificial but necessary addition to the documentary. In a final scene the one reading the texts revealed herself as an actress who had no personal involvement in the issues, but was effectively used as a vehicle to get this information across. During the press conference organized by the Berlinale it was explained that this was the only way to obtain and release this information, if only to protect the sources since harsh policies have been issued to deal with information leakage.All in all, I'm not sure the message will land where it should land, namely with non-IT people who should know about the implications of "cyber warfare", having an impact on our future that cannot be underestimated. I don't think that a documentary that takes nearly 2 hours, will achieve said goal. Nevertheless, I applaud every honest attempt. The documentary is well made and tries to present a balanced view on the matter. Well made, but probably shooting over everyone's head and defeating its well-intended purposes.