After the Sony hack forced "The Interview" out of its prime Christmas release slot, there seemed to be one movie perfectly primed to take its place: "Team America: World Police." Obviously.

In a close second, however, came "Blackhat." What better time for a hacker action thriller than in the midst of a widely reported notorious hack, playing out right in front of the public’s fascinated eyes? Just sit back, thought my fantasy studio owner mind, and basically let the nightly news and entertainment sites do your ad campaign for you.

Alas, Universal kept the film in the winter graveyard of January. And maybe that was for the best, because even with its absurdly timely sounding synopsis, "Blackhat" plays like a relic, recalling less the anxiety of today’s headlines and more the warmed-over memories of yesterday’s forgettable action junk and silly techno-trash like "The Net" or "Swordfish."

Chris Hemsworth, ditching hammers for hard drives, stars as Hathaway, the kind of tough-as-granite hyper-capable gruff action hacker convict who’s as comfortable busting into a bar fight as he is busting into the NSA mainframe (aka, the kind that exists almost exclusively in the minds of hacky Hollywood action movie writers). Most importantly – and most cliché – he’s the only man who can help a global investigation into what hacker just blew up a Chinese nuclear power plant, the stock price of soy futures and who knows what next.

Plucked from prison – in between bouts of philosophy and push-ups – and offered his freedom, Hathaway teams up with the awkward bedfellows of the FBI (led by Viola Davis) and the Chinese government – represented by his former college roommate Dawai (Leehom Wang) – together hunting leads across multiple continents in the hopes of stopping the hacker before his next attack. And speaking of awkward bedfellows, Hathaway and Dawai’s fellow hacker sister Lien (Tang Wei) fall in love over the course of the investigation.

Outside of "The Social Network," the world of computers has mostly proven to be rough territory for Hollywood, mostly because people sitting around, pensively looking at screens and pounding on keyboards isn’t exactly the most scintillatingly cinematic activity.

If anybody’s going to take on the near Sisyphean challenge, however, action auteurist Michael Mann is a strong choice as tribute. The "Heat" and "Public Enemies" director certainly has a vision all his own: a moody and seductive blend of dreamy expressionism and urgent hyper-reality. Like the opening shot of Earth, encased in technology and glowing white like a luminous, alien moon, it’s our world, just hewed cooler – both in emotions and attitude.

Many of the usual Mann-isms are present and accounted for: pulsing synth music, sunglasses and suits, speedboats, the intertwining ethical and moral codes of cops and criminals, extreme close-ups seemingly shot from the perspective of pirate’s parrot or a drop of sweat, his distinct visual eye and, of course, his even more distinct brand of intense action, punctuated with loud gun fire that sounds more like God’s jackhammer.

If you key in solely on those last two, "Blackhat" delivers respectably. When Mann is on his game, the visuals build a cool, seductive mood with impactful images – skylines that look like blinking modems packed together, two men walking against a parade in a way that appears like they’re not even moving at all, billboards featuring eyes and watches that forebodingly peer into our heroes’ secret apartment.

It makes it all the more jarring when the action breaks out, switching into realism with bullets exploding through the speakers. Mann’s action is much more paced and – to borrow a word from Viola Davis’ character – tangible than most Hollywood setpieces. Bullets actually seem to embed into the shipping containers and concrete slabs being used for cover. Ammunition seems to have worth, and the rhythm feels staccato. Add in Mann’s tendency to shoot on hi-def digital video, and they often feel like real, tense gunfights, without the gloss, glamour and caffeine of most blockbusters.

Not all of his ideas work. An early sequence taking a CG tour through a virus’ inner workings recalls bad techno-thrillers past, and for every scene where the HD digital video approach looks good, there’s one where it feels shoddy and cheap. One restaurant fight scene especially appears ragged, shot seemingly on a grainy, smeary cell phone camera. It looks urgent; it also looks ugly.

Throughout his resume, Mann was one of the first directors to tinker and experiment with digital video on a big blockbuster scale. And as one has to expect with experiments, sometimes the results are good; sometimes, not as much.

Mann’s interest in experimenting with his visual aesthetics, however, can’t hide his apparent disinterest in anything actually going on in "Blackhat." It’s hard to blame him considering the script from Morgan Davis Foehl, a first-time screenwriter (but don’t be worried; he also did editing work on two Adam Sandler movies!). Foehl revels in the kind of wooden characters, clichéd dialogue and silly plot developments long laid to rest by modern action movies. It’s hard to believe a 2015 movie still has goofy lines like, "That’s what you’re up to, isn’t it, you son of a b*tch," unironically spoken aloud to no one in particular.

The plot isn’t much smarter. Furloughed, lone wolf convicts are allowed to investigate radiation-happy crime scenes – as well as your standard issue crime scenes – and tinker with officers phones without any meaningful surveillance or concern. The villain’s diabolical plan is a convoluted Bond-esque scheme involving the sexiest of plot devices: tin. The romance comes out of nowhere, seemingly due to physical proximity rather than any previously noted romantic chemistry.

It’s all pretty dumb, but the bigger sin is that – aside from some solid action highlights – "Blackhat" is mostly just dull. It still comes mostly down to people looking intently at screens, reading off anonymous letters, symbols and goofy wannabe tough talk like, "Piss off and die, Ghostman."

The universally miscast group of actors doesn’t help matters. Hemsworth has proven himself to be a magnetic star in the "Thor" films, but here he’s a charisma-less slab of beef (handsome, well-displayed beef at least). The Aussie actor seems lost in the role of gruff hacker tough guy – which, fair enough – occasionally trying on a grumbly droopy dog New York City accent and creating no energy with his stiff on-screen counterparts Wei (who struggles to make handing over a thumb drive look natural) or Wang.

Then again, it’s hard to find much to go on with boring computer babble and lines like, "Is your phone an Android?" The only member of the cast whose personality manages to break through the techno-tedium is national treasure Davis. Though she’s coping with the same miserable script ("Don’t invoke 9/11 to me," says her boss, proceeding to clumsily invoke 9/11 for the movie), she brings some desperately needed soul to the picture – as well as some withering comebacks and glances that are as piercing and deadly as one of Hathaway’s sharpened screwdrivers.

However, when a movie’s climactic fight tries to tensely pit the God of Thunder against an aloof Hobbit-looking hacker, some missteps have clearly been made. At least "Blackhat" has the decency to at least dispatch the baddie in amusingly badass fashion, but by that time, I had stopped caring about who these bland, stiff people were or why we were here.

Considering the dull, unfeeling movie playing in front of me, it seemed Mann maybe did too. It even seems to bleed into the director’s beloved aesthetics. The audio mix is a mess, with dialogue needlessly wavering in and out sometimes on a line-by-line basis. The score drops out for an awkward second in the middle of the film’s climax. Lines exchanged between Chinese officials are glaringly dubbed over. An early newscast still has a stock footage watermark on it, serving as a distraction at best.

After a while, if the director doesn’t seem to care about the movie – and especially the story and people in it – why should the audience?