Believe it or not, the framing events of Dark Web: Cicada 3301 have a basis in reality. The subtitle was inspired by the activities of a group called Cicada 3301 that would post elaborate puzzles on 4chan, that enigmatic imageboard site that has been home to so many similar and similarly troubling content since its inception, with the hopes of recruiting codebreakers from the public domain. To this day, the third of its puzzles has yet to be solved more than seven years after it was posted on Twitter. This is clearly fascinating material for any storyteller to tackle (indeed, it inspired a “case of the week” episode for a moderately popular television procedural). Screenwriters Alan Ritchson and Joshua Montcalm are the wrong people to tackle it.
The reason makes itself known pretty quickly: This is a movie that cannot decide whether it is a topical thriller with a lot to say, a twisted thriller populated by characters we cannot trust or a big, brash comedy that dismisses all of those things with a cutesy and untrustworthy framing device. Gratefully, the audience won’t have to stretch very far to discover what it truly is: absolutely none of those things, courtesy of a fundamental lack of craft or polish. Ritchson, who also makes his directorial debut and casts himself in a secondary supporting role, and Montcalm are mostly interested in overwhelming us with a lot of plot that is impossible to follow and characters who are impossible to like.
That cutesy framing device finds Connor Black (Jack Kesy, whose disdain for the material comes through with the dull and irritated performance of an actor who would rather be anywhere else) on trial for – as the presiding judge (Victoria Snow) puts it – so many crimes that it becomes difficult to know where to begin in charging him. Connor’s testimony provides the film’s marble-mouthed narration, and since the professional-level codebreaker likes to embellish his story and lie about many of its details, what follows is entirely untrustworthy – not to mention grossly homophobic and racist in its presentation of one character and misogynistic in its approach to another.
Connor stumbled upon the Cicada puzzles and couldn’t help following the clues to solve the puzzle. To help him in his quest, he recruits his friend Avi (Ron Funches), who is written as both an insulting gay stereotype and a degrading black stereotype, and enigmatic librarian Gwen (Conor Leslie), whose identity is the only genuine surprise here (meaning that, no, it’s not surprising that she’s somehow also written as a condescending lesbian stereotype). Their journey then brings them into the vicinity of the film’s antagonist, puzzle-obsessed weirdo Phillip Dubois (Kris Holden-Ried). A lot of stupidity ensues.
None of it holds any significance, either as an attempt to bring the Cicada story to the screen or even as a standalone thriller on its own merits. Ritchson directs every actor, every exchange and every sequence without any finesse, simply giving himself excuses to up the ante of Connor’s storytelling embellishments and the strange behavior of the other characters. In short, Dark Web: Cicada 3301 is not funny, thrilling or compelling. Rather, it’s one big middle finger to the audience.
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