In the 1996 blockbuster “Mission: Impossible,” the secret agent played by Tom Cruise uses email to set a trap for one of his adversaries – a shadowy, Bible-quoting figure he knows only as “Max.”
Mr. Cruise’s character uses a laptop to compose an email message addressed to “Max@Job 3:14.” Once he clicks the “send” button, the email is carried away in an oversized on-screen envelope, complete with postage stamp. In the real world, such a message would set the stage for a bounce-back error message, not an action/adventure thriller.
Ten years after “Mission: Impossible,” Hollywood still has a spotty track record when it comes to portraying computers and the Internet. Some portrayals are so absurd as to leave viewers wondering if the film’s producers use the same Internet they do.
“The thing that always gets me is watching people send emails,” said Harry Knowles, a self-described tech geek and online film critic who runs Ain’t It Cool News, a popular movie-industry site. “You click ’send’ and the entire document begins to fold into an envelope and disappear into the screen. I tend to send around 300 to 400 emails a day, and that would drive me insane.”