Dark Web: Cicada 3301 is, surprisingly to me, not a supernatural horror movie about a demon living in the dark web (a premise of similarly titled movies). It’s also not exactly the techno thriller it actually is… it’s a hybrid mish-mash of broad (sometimes very broad) comedy with Dan Brown-style thriller, with a little Eyes Wide Shut and a half dozen other half-baked inspirations.

The film is about a miscast hacker who is pinched by the NSA to help them infiltrate Cicada 3301… a real internet urban legend / secret society. This involves solving a series of cryptic puzzles that would feel at home in a National Treasure or Dan Brown film. No crime there… it is what it is in that regard.

But the movie just has a wildly unlikely broad sense of humor that doesn’t fit the attempts at an edgy cyber-thriller it settles on most of the time. It’s distracting… nothing wrong with comedy in a suspense film but the comedy here was just so misplaced. The lead actor is also a bit of a muscle bound, too handsome dude bro. He’s not very likable or relatable and that’s kind of a problem.

Ultimately though, this is a pretty pedestrian cyber thriller that you will likely forget in a day or two, as though the NSA snuck up and flashy-thinged you. And ain’t nobody gonna miss the humor or the bog standard espionage thriller stuff here. It’s too low energy and generic to really make an impact.

Score: 70