I sure wish I knew how this whole movie machine works. Take this movie ‘The Net 2.0’… please! HAR HAR HAR! But seriously folks, I vaguely remember the original ‘The Net’, and that’s coming from somebody who thinks that Sandra Bullock is just the cutest thing since Winnie the Pooh, even at age forty three. I know I saw that movie but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was about, just that Sandy B. was in it. So I’m at Big Lots one day looking for discount toilet paper and in their extremely discounted DVD bin was this movie, ‘The Net 2.0’, a movie that I wasn’t even aware existed, for two bucks. It would be way more trouble to turn on a computer and place this in my Netflix cue or try to find some virus ridden illegal download than just passing two bucks across the counter and actually owning a reasonably new movie. Renting outright is gonna cost you three bucks and I’m never one to pass on a deal. So as a proud owner of this movie as opposed to a renter, copier or stealer as some of you fine people tend to do out there, I peel open the shrink wrap, smell that new DVD aroma and slip it in the player. Though there’s nothing particularly awful about this film, I let it sit in my brain after watching it for a few weeks only to realize that I was forgetting it even more quickly than I forgot the original and I figure I better jot down something about this flick before it leaves my brain forever.

Hope Cassidy (Nikki Deloach) is a superstar computer programmer who has just got like the sweetest job ever to… damn, I forgot already. Anyway it’s a foreign country. She tries to convince her one true love James (Neil Haven) to come along but he’s a hater and chooses to stay behind in… San Francisco? Maybe? Since Hope has no family to leave behind it’s off to this foreign country to do some computer programming and get paid.

Turkey! She got the job in Istanbul Turkey, I remember now! So Hope grabs a cab, though the cabbie seems hesitant to take her to where she wants to go, checks into the hotel and meets some chick (Keegan Connor Tracy) who is all troubled, but being the sweetie Hope shows her some love. She goes to her new job and introduces herself to everyone, shows her new boss some of her mad computer skillz and it looks like Hope has made the right move. Then everything falls apart. I fergit but something happens like she loses her wallet or something and she goes to the American Embassy, again being escorted by this extremely helpful cabbie, to get a new passport and though the Embassy dude is helpful, whatever the scam is he’s in on it too. I think.

Anyway Hope is the victim of super duper Identity Theft as she has been made the patsy in bunch of crimes and a couple of murders and gets thrown in jail. Again, I can’t quite remember how she got out of jail, but it might have had something to do with the sexy flight attendant (Sebnem Donmez). Now Hope has to use her superior computer skills, combined with her supreme intellect and amazing athletic ability to find out who has done what and why they have chosen to do it to her.

In true Direct to Video sequel form ‘The Net 2.0’ has no connection whatsoever to the film it proceeded by well over a decade, but I think that I may have liked this one more, if only I could remember what the hell the first one was about. Whatever success this film has will largely be due to its star, Nikki Deloach, who was in virtually every single scene of this film and handled herself quite well. Nikki had to run constantly, so she’s in pretty good shape, she had to kick a little ass here and there, had to solve some serious McGyver-esque problems and is just one progesterone filled super badass through this film. Director Charles Winkler pulls out every conceivable camera trick and post production technique he had in at his disposal to keep his film moving quickly as the camera was rarely stationary, whipped around quite often from different angles with plenty of fancy freezes, wipes, slow mo, and washed out colors. I should mention that Charles Winkler is the son of long time Hollywood heavy Irwin Winkler who also produced this film. Nepotism totally rules!

The narrative of ‘The Net 2.0’ was not very engaging nor all that memorable, obviously, but it seemed to just serve the purpose of linking the multiple action sequences together since this was basically an action flick that just happened to star a woman for a welcome change.

If I really want to refresh my memory of this flick all I have to do is walk to my DVD shelf and pull it off because I OWN it. Though ‘The Net 2.0’ was a fairly forgettable and uninspiring film it did have a nice look, some decent action sequences and a solid performance from Nikki Deloach. Probably the best two bucks I’ve spent since I picked up those three two liter Red Pop’s. Now THAT was a helluva deal.