User Reviews

16 year old Troy Mayfield (Chris Carpenter) is a programming savant. His mother Kate Mayfield (Mira Sorvino) runs the family video game company but she doesn't want him to work there. After he gets suspended from school, he scares off his mother's angel investor. The company is in trouble. Troy fixes the company's only game created by lead programmer Jimmy Tisdale (Sean Astin). His mother gives him control of the game but his idea may be too big and time is short.

I don't know anything about the Carpenter family. This seems to be a real indie affair with this family writing a script and getting it made. I give them full marks for effort. The story has some good ideas but sadly, it also has some bad ideas. The worst is the kid decides to make a whole new game in a month. That is ridiculous. A better idea would be that he already has written the game. They could spend the time adapting it. It's still not enough time but at least, that is not beyond reason. The final solution has the same issue with unreasonable programming. Finally, I hate the programming montages. I hate the spinning around and around. It reminds of Hackers in a bad way. That move fits the silliness of Hackers but this one is in desperate need of believability. They could have steered into the low rent production by doing a simple fast forward. It's also possible for him to not just sit in front of the computer. Despite the general unrealistic world, this story has some good elements and it has a great cast. The kids are fine. This just needs to clean up the unrealistic parts.

Whoever wrote this (and greenlighted it), hasn't the faintest notion of corporate finance, M&A, games development, youth culture or how people communicate in 2020-21. Completely unrealistic and woefully outdated. Awful camera work. Looks like made for TV (and that's being generous).

Recommend you ignore the many fake 10/10 reviews here and avoid. Check out how many of the reviewers scoring 10 have reviewed only 1 movie (this one) - pretty much all of them.

Watched it last night, it wasn't bad for a teenager movie, to show the coding world.

I can tell the budget was not that high, but the acting and story line is not horrible as what others are commenting. If you don't understand that part of the world "programming", you are going to rate this a terrible movie.

The negative comments are comparing high budget movies like Star Wars, and Avengers to a indie movie that under Comedy, Kids & Family. Good movie based on young teenagers working in the Coding world.

I rate this 7 out of 10. Story line, equipment and knowledge in the movie was almost accurate. I hope my review helps.

I watched this with a few of my fellow developers. I can't find the words.

We'd all watched the trailer and figured, we won't like this, but the actual movie is even worse and dumber than the trailer.

These people should never be allowed anywhere near a camera, possibly even a pencil, this is beyond awful.

Do. Not. Watch.

This was billed as sci-fi comedy. It isn't either of these.

It's depressing, a poor reflection on the how someone thinks that software is developed or how teams work together.

There is nothing engaging, interesting, or fun in this film.

This movie is awful. It's uninteresting, unfunny, and 8-Bit Christmas is just a superior gaming-themed movie.

But the appearance of Scott the Woz did save this movie from getting a 1/10 from me. In fact, he's the only reason I know about this move. His appearance just didn't feel like it wasn't taken advantage of though, even if his cameo was kinda funny, and the only part of the movie I laughed at.

This is an absolute atrocity of a movie. I'd rather watch paint dry than watch this abomination again. To understand the humor that this movie contains, you first have to bang your head repeatedly on a hard surface. This movie is nauseatingly unfunny. And that is my review, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this review.

This movie is perfect for families looking for something to watch together. Great balance of jokes for all ages and a ton of heart!

Lots of 10 star reviews. At the time of me writing this, there is only 1 review that is not 10 stars. I wish I could get my time back. They tried but this film is just horrible on nearly every front even with OG's like Sean Astin and Mira Sorvino.

Hero Mode was good movie to watch with the family. Having two boys (14 and 12) who like to play games themselves, they thought it was interesting to see some of the background that occurs with creating them.

Not entirely sure why this movie has such a low rating unless everyone that watched it has brain. Is this a Oscar wining movie, probably not, but it is way better than the 3.5 or whatever stars it has. I gave this movie a 7 because itx's a feel Good movie that inspires teamwork to overcome obstacles. Something I know the world needs more of these days. This movie deserves to be watched and talked about.

Another movie promoted here by investors, cast and crew. A pretty lame script, delivered by a cast that just started Overacting school. If you value your time, just give this a pass.

Superb movie, this is a great movie for family, and I enjoyed it watching, I know by seeing this movie not to stop in your life even if bad things happen in your life.

Seriously? It starts with an 8 rating?

Come on!!!

I won't even dignify it with a proper review.

Racial epithet in classroom near the beginning (at about 3 minutes in..a racist word is still racist, no matter the context). A recruitment film for future coders...welcome to the steno-pool. Not to mention the continued sexualization of children. Just more hypocritical nonsense from the entertainment industry.

More than 2 lines is a lot to write about this movie.

1 star, i dont like it, is horrible, i lost my hope for the cinema.

Hero Mode is a family oriented flick about a teenager played by Chris Carpenter who loves to code video games and ends up having to create a game to save the family business in less than 30 days before they lose it all. Mira Sorvino played Chris's mother who suffers from MS, while Sean Astin acts as a graphic designer. Mary Lynn Rajskub, Bobby Lee, Jim O'Heir and Creed Bratton from the Office round up the cast. It's a good typical script, nothing stands out, it was just a nice family movie.

This is a great movie for the family! Lots of laugh out loud moments, for both adults and kids. And of course, everyone loves a feel-good ending! The cast is mixed with talented newcomers and many seasoned actors, rounding out an impressive roster.

I am not exactly in the target audience for HERO MODE because I don't watch that many video-game based movies but I was curious about this in particular because there is one of the actors I follow. Considering that it's current score is 4,4 I expected garbage but instead I kinda liked it more than I expected.

Kate Mayfield (Mira Sorvino) is a video game business owner that is financially struggling and asks her son Troy to delevop the greatest video game ever for winning an upcoming gaming convention and if Troy wins the prize Kate will save her business. Troy is enthusiastic about the project but there is competition with Rick (the CEO of a rival company) that wants to win the competition for buying the company and fire everyone. How it will end? See for yourselves.

The plot might look simple as it comes but instead it works because all the cast members give nice performances and the ending is worth the wait. It's also an unique family movie because they still hadn't made one about a boy that has to make a videogame with a time limit.

Not exactly masterpiece theater but still decent entertainment, and that's what counts sometimes.

Have seen more creativity watching pigeons fight over a piece of bread at the park. Can't believe some of of the previous reviews, I will need several counselling sessions to get over the damage that I I'm pretty sure is permanent. The were a real bunch of decent actors in it but baffles me how you could take a role in a movie without reading the script. Or worse, maybe you read the script & still did the movie. Anyway, I normally don't write reviews but I thought the merciful thing was to try prevent anyone from losing 90 minutes of there life. One positive was that the family & friend I watched this with really bonded over it, but I've heard that shared trauma always brings people together.