tek's rating: ½

Knight Rider (2008), on NBC
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Caution: spoilers.

Based on the 1980s series Knight Rider. I used to watch the old show when I was a kid; I don't remember it well, but I'm sure I liked it well enough. Anyway, the movie starts with some guys who apparently kill an old man named Charles Graiman, who had created a computer system called Prometheus, which could remotely control military drones and stuff. They steal his hard drives with the information on the system, which they have been hired to obtain for someone (who we never actually see in the movie). But the files are of course encrypted, so these guys, who didn't actually intend to kill Graiman, now need to get ahold of his daughter, Sarah, who had helped her father with the encryptions in the first place. She's a teacher at Stanford now, I guess.

But before they can get ahold of her, she is rescued by a a Ford Mustang called KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand). Sarah's father had invented another KITT 25 years ago (see original series), and now he'd made a new one. It had been programmed to ensure her safety, and enlist the help of Mike Tracer, an ex-Army Ranger with whom Sarah had grown up. Now he um... is in debt to "investors" (loan sharks), who give him 24 hours to come up with the money he owes, or they'll kill his friend Dylan, and if he still doesn't get the money, they'll kill him.

Anyway, there's this whole thing about how Mike and Sarah used to be involved, and then drifted apart when they each went away to school, or whatever, so there's some tension there. They're not exactly comfortable being together again, but they don't have much choice; anyway, I guess Sarah provides money to pay off the loan sharks. Meanwhile, the guys who killed her father are still trying to get to Sarah, but it's not easy. The new KITT is faster than the old car, can change its appearance, has a more advanced A.I. and can hack pretty much any system to get information, monitor situations via surveillance systems, control electronically locked doors, whatever. It even has nanotech that instantly repairs damage to itself. Of course, like the original, it talks, and can drive itself.

There's also an FBI agent named Carrie Rivai, who knew Graiman. A sheriff investigating the scene of his murder wants her to confirm the body's identity, and it turns out to be a body double, so the real Graiman is still alive. He ran through a secret escape in his mansion, and found his old friend Jennifer, who is Mike's estranged mother. Yes, gosh, there's lots of subplot about strained family relations in this movie. I should mention that Graiman and his wife were divorced, and she died a year ago, and Sarah regrets some things she said or never got to say. And Mike hasn't talked to his mom for a long time, and also his father had left them when he was very young. Anyway, eventually Mike and Sarah meet up with Graiman and Jennifer, but the bad guys catch up to them, and....

Well, you know, lots of stuff happens, like one of the bad guys is a computer expert who tries to hack KITT's AI (so the computer has to go offline and the car be driven manually). And um, the good guys eventually meet up with Rivai, but.... Meh, I just watched it, and already I'm forgetting details, the exact sequence of events. Suffice to say, the bad guys seem to be on top for awhile, but eventually the good guys win (though not without loss). There will be a funeral, at which Mike meets his father, who turns out to be Michael Knight, who of course drove the original KITT. And now the Foundation is going to be started up again, and work with the FBI on certain missions. And they want Mike to drive KITT.

And that's all I can say, but it really wasn't bad, and I thought that if it ended up leading to a new series (which it was supposed to do), I might check that out. However, by the time the new series came along, I had lost interest, and never watched any of it.


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