Ready Player One review

READY PLAYER ONE:

STEVEN SPIELBERG DELIVERS A FAITHFUL ADAPTATION OF ERNEST CLINE’S NOVEL AS WELL AS A POP-CULTURE MINDF*CK!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

A competition for full control of the future will begin in Ready Player One

            From director, Steven Spielberg (E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, The Post) comes a sci-fi adventure film like no other, Ready Player One, based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Cline who also co-wrote the film’s script. I don’t do a whole lot of reading in my spare time but Ready Player One is such an explosion of pop-culture references from movies, video games, TV shows, cartoons, and comic books consistently throughout the book, I was hooked until the last page, this is probably what you’d get if I ever wrote a book.

            So, I was more than onboard for a movie adaptation and Spielberg seemed like the perfect choice to helm it, since he’s directed and produced like, every single genre of film. From sci-fi films like E.T., Jurassic Park, and the Back to the Future trilogy to horror movies such as Twilight Zone: The Movie, Poltergeist, and Duel, the greatest shark movie ever made, Jaws, comedies like Catch Me If You Can, the Men in Black trilogy, and Gremlins, and he even produced the groundbreaking blend of live-action and animation, Who framed Roger Rabbit.

            After seeing the movie, I can gladly say, not only is it a faithful adaptation of the book but it’s even better. Spielberg doesn’t limit the film to only the references and characters from the book, but expands on them to great lengths, add flashy eye-candy visuals, some decent humor, and some wild action sequences, and you get a glorious pop-culture mindf*ck.

            In the post-apocalyptic future of 2045, the film follows a teenage boy named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan-Mud, Joe, X-Men: Apocalypse) who lives in the corrupted, overpopulated, and polluted slums of Columbus, Ohio with nowhere to go…physically. To escape the harsh reality, he enters a virtual world called the Oasis where anything is possible, and users can interact and engage in various activities for work, education, and entertainment.

            The Oasis was created by the deceased, James Halliday (Mark Rylance-Bridge of Spies, The BFG, Dunkirk) and heavily inspired by 80s nostalgia from his childhood such as Atari 2600 games like Adventure and Galaga to movies like The Shining. After the Oasis went online, it eventually became a wonderland of famous worlds, characters, and objects such as The DeLorean from Back to the Future, the world of Minecraft, the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, Tracer from Overwatch, Master Chief and the Spartans from Halo, Freddy Krueger, Batman, Ryu from Street Fighter, Chucky, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mobile Suit Gundam, Kaneda’s bike from Akira, Mechagodzilla, The Iron Giant, and many others.

            At the time of his passing, Halliday hid an Easter egg in the Oasis that grants the winner of his challenge complete control of the Oasis, which translates out to control of the future. Wade, with the help of rebellion team, Art3mis (Olivia Cooke-Bates Motel, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Thoroughbreds), Aech (Lena Waithe-Bones, Dear White People, Master of None), Daito (Win Morisaki-Tokyo Girl, Gokusen Special 3, Tengoku Kara no Yell), and Sho (Newcomer, Phillip Zhao) must race to find the egg before the ruthless corporation known as IOI (Innovative Online Industries), a video game corporation so evil it puts EA Games to shame, and its CEO, Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn-Bloodline, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Darkest Hour) take control of the Oasis, and save both the virtual and real world from IOI’s power.

            The film also stars T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley, Gravity Falls, Deadpool) as i-R0k, Simon Pegg (Cornetto trilogy, Star Trek (2009) trilogy, The Boxtrolls) as the Curator, and Hannah John-Kamen (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Tomb Raider, Ant-Man and the Wasp) as F’Nale Zandor.

            Overall, Ready Player One is an absolute joy-ride and follows in the footsteps of Mad Max: Fury Road as one of those movies that needs a lap bar and a harness to come down over the seat like a rollercoaster. Specifically, during any race scene or action sequence, because there is so much flying out at you and it’s consistently energetic to the point where your brain feels numb, and unlike a Michael Bay Transformers movie you don’t get sick or feel bored by its relentless action.

            When you see a bunch of vehicles driving off a cliff to the other side of the racetrack, with a wrecking ball destroying everything in its path, while being chased by the Jurassic Park T-Rex, and attacked by King Kong, literally I think the only thing missing was the flaming guitar guy from Mad Max (Warner Bros. you had only ONE job, ONE JOB!). Obviously watching several beloved characters engage in a war against the IOI is absolutely thrilling, and…it gives any Marvel Cinematic Universe climax a run for their money, YES, I went there.

            However, if I had to nitpick a few things, the plot isn’t that original, real people in a virtual world that feels like reality, didn’t we see this in Tron, the notorious Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, and most recently in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle? Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke deliver portray Wade and Art3mis well, but a lot of the side characters are pretty forgettable and would have liked to see them established a little better, and there’s not much of an origin to the real world and how it became a post-apocalyptic future. But these are flaws that don’t ruin the movie in any way, I didn’t see Ready Player One to see a post-apocalyptic future and criticize the plot and characters, I came for the nostalgia and pop-culture references, that’s where the film truly shines.

            This is what a good book to film adaptation looks like, respecting and honoring the source material while expanding on it. If it was a word-for-word retelling with nothing new added, what’s the point in watching the movie?

            Spielberg honors Cline’s story and celebrates pop-culture in a way that has never been done before. Yes, Roger Rabbit and Wreck-It Ralph have celebrated parts of pop-culture such as cartoons and video games, here’s a movie that pays tribute to pop-culture as a whole and the impact it has on many people’s lives.

            Ready Player One is Spielberg magic and thrills on steroids that must be seen in theaters to truly believe. In fact, I’m tempted to go see it again in 4D if it’s playing near me in that format.

Pacific Rim: Uprising review

PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING:

SATISFIES IN DUMB POPCORN ENTERTAINMENT BUT LACKING THE UNEXPECTED BRILLIANCE THAT MADE THE ORIGINAL UNIQUE!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

The Jaegers are back to face a new enemy in Pacific Rim: Uprising

            The Jaegers are back to battle the Kaiju once again in the sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 hit, Pacific Rim, the movie that gave Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise and Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla movie a run for their money. The film had a unique style of production design, thrilling action that never gets repetitive, a variety of different robots, monsters, and fight scenes, and a spark of intelligence in a dumb action flick.

            Naturally a sequel was inevitable because as we all know major Hollywood movies can never be self-contained anymore, they either have to become a franchise or part of a larger cinematic universe. In comes Pacific Rim: Uprising, with Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) returning as producer and Steven S. DeKnight making his directorial debut.

            Does this Pacific Rim sequel stand as tall as its predecessor? Is bigger actually better? Well…not exactly, but it’s at least fun. Like its predecessor, Pacific Rim: Uprising is filled with eye-candy, non-stop action, and unique-looking Jaegers and Kaiju monsters to the point where it pretty much plays like a corny toy commercial (And you know what? I’d buy the toys), but it does lack in originality and it doesn’t offer much of the intelligent side that the first movie offered.

            The first movie is silly and consistently over-the-top action, but it was balanced out through its concept of the robots being controlled through the memories and thoughts of its two pilots which determines how strong it is in battle. Besides introduce new robots and monsters to sell toys, Uprising doesn’t really do much new with the story and focuses more on being a dumb popcorn flick.

            Ten years after the war between the Jaegers and Kaiju, the film follows rebellious teenager, Jake Pentecost (John Boyega-Attack the Block, Star Wars franchise, Imperial Dreams), a once-promising Jaeger pilot and the son of war hero, Stacker (Idris Elba’s character from the first movie) who risked his life to save humanity, abandoning his training to become caught in a criminal underworld. However, when a Jaeger mysteriously goes rogue and re-opens the Kaiju portal, and releasing an even bigger enemy, Jake is given one last chance by his estranged sister, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi-Babel, The Sky Crawlers, Norwegian Wood), who now controls the Jaeger program, to live up to his father’s legacy and lead a new team of Jaeger pilots to fight the Kaiju and save humanity.

            Jake is joined up by gifted rival pilot, Lambert (Scott Eastwood-Gran Torino, Suicide Squad, The Fate of the Furious) and 15-year-old Jaeger hacker, Amara (Newcomer, Cailee Spaeny) as he whips this new team into shape to stop the Kaiju from destroying the world.

            The film also stars Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Horrible Bosses, Vacation) as Dr. Newton “Newt” Geiszler, Burn Gorman (Torchwood, The Dark Knight Rises, Game of Thrones) as Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, Jing Tian (Dragon Nest: Warriors’ Down, The Great Wall, Kong: Skull Island) as Liwen Shao, Adria Arjona (The Belko Experiment, Emerald City, Life of the Party) as Jules Reyes, Zhang Jin (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Grandmaster, Ip Man 3) as Marshal Quan, Karan Brar (Diary of a Wimpy Kid trilogy, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Bunk’d) as Suresh, Ivanna Sakhno (The Spy Who Dumped Me) as Vik, Mackenyu (Night’s Tightrope, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter 1, Peach Girl) as Ryoichi, Zhu Zhu (Cloud Atlas, The Man with the Iron Fists, Tubelight) as Juen, and Nick E. Tarabay (Star Trek Into Darkness, The Veil) as Sonny.

            Overall, Pacific Rim: Uprising is dumb fun and it never tries to be anything more, which could be either a positive or negative depending on your perspective. On one hand the action is exciting and people looking for rock-em, sock-em thrills will get a huge load of it with little slow moments, but on the other hand, as silly as the first film was, Charlie Hunnam and especially Idris Elba stood out as memorable characters and offered a new take on a genre that has been done to death, besides John Boyega and Charlie Day (For reasons you’re probably not expecting) are the only stand-out characters here.

            Outside of playing around with concepts of Kaiju-controlled Jaeger drones (Didn’t Iron Man 2 do something like that?) and the team’s Jaegers that look like they were ripped straight out of the Zords from Power Rangers, the film doesn’t do much new and offers exactly what it advertises, giant robots and monsters fighting each other. But unlike Michael Bay’s Transformers movies, at least Pacific Rim: Uprising isn’t a relentless, chaotic, frenzy that never ends.

            If you know what you’re getting into, Pacific Rim: Uprising is worth a watch, it delivers plenty of flashy visuals, thrilling action sequences, and a colorful collection of Jaegers and Kaiju monsters that make for some entertaining popcorn fun. However, if you’re looking for something more with your robot and monster action, then Uprising may be a disappointment, I don’t think it’s bad but compared to the first movie, there isn’t much to it, take it for what it’s worth.

Tomb Raider review

TOMB RAIDER:

A VIDEO GAME TO FILM ADAPTATION THAT ISN’T PERFECT, BUT CLOSE ENOUGH!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES AND MGM

Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider

            World-famous video game adventurer, Lara Croft returns to film in Tomb Raider, based on the Square Enix (The current owner of the property) video game series of the same name. This isn’t the first time Lara Croft fell victim to the video game movie cash grab craze, the role was previously portrayed by Angelina Jolie in the 2001 film, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and its sequel, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

            Now Academy Award® winner, Alicia Vikander (Ex-Machina, The Danish Girl, Jason Bourne) dons the blue tank-top, bow, and arrows under direction by Roar Uthaug (Magic Silver, Escape, The Wave). I was expecting something terrible as video game film adaptations have a very negative reputation, but for what they’re doing with the source material, Tomb Raider surprisingly isn’t half bad.

            Why does a film adaptation of Tomb Raider work compared to other video game movie attempts like Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie (and trust me, we’ll get to that along the road)? Well, Tomb Raider is a perfect fit for a movie, the games were adventure based and very reminiscent of Indiana Jones or even the Brendan Fraser Mummy movie, and for the most part it translates to film quite nicely.

            The movie captures the look and feel of Tomb Raider literally right down to having scenes recreated from the games in live-action. Obviously, the filmmakers have done their homework and gave us a decent adaptation of the game and a flawed but fun adventure movie to boot, take several notes Boll.

            The film follows, Lara Croft (Vikander), the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West-Chicago, 300, Punisher: War Zone) who left her when she was a little girl and vanished without a trace. Now a 21-year-old woman without any real focus on purpose, Lara believes her father is still alive and discovers a puzzle that could help her solve the mystery behind his disappearance.

            Going against her father’s “Final Wishes”, she leaves everything she knows and loves behind and embarks on an adventure in search of her dad’s last-known location, an ancient tomb on a mysterious island somewhere off the coast of Japan with the help of a ship captain named Lu Ren (Daniel Wu-House of Fury, Tai Chi, Overheard). But her mission will not be easy, just getting to the island will be extremely treacherous and the stakes getting higher as Lara must push herself beyond her limits into the great unknown to save her father and possibly the world.

            The film also stars Walton Goggins (The Bourne Identity, Predators, Lincoln) as Mathias Vogel, Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient, Darkest Hour) as Ana Miller, Hannah John-Kamen (Killjoys, Ready Player One, Ant-Man and the Wasp) as Sophie, Antonio Aakeel (Skins, City of Tiny Lights, Eaten by Lions) as Nitin Ahuja, Derek Jacobi (Gladiator, The King’s Speech, Cinderella (2015)) as Mr. Yaffe, Nick Frost (Cornetto trilogy, Paul, The Boxtrolls) as Max, Jaime Winstone (Wild Bill, Powder Room, Love, Rosie) as Pamela, and Duncan Airlie James (Starred Up, ID2: Shadwell Army, Autumn Never Dies) as Terry.

            Overall, Tomb Raider isn’t a great film (it’s debatable whether or not it’s even a good film) but it’s certainly the best video game movie adaptation we’ve gotten so far. It succeeds where most adaptations fail, representing the source material and being faithful to it while still being an adventure movie.

            We’ve had several adaptations in the past that tried to be so different from its source material to the point where they were unrecognizable to fans like Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and pretty much every single video game movie directed by Uwe Boll. On the other hand, there have been video game film adaptations that were extremely loyal to the source material but never really delivered much to the mainstream like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, or the Ratchet & Clank movie that came out a couple years ago.

            Tomb Raider finds a decent middle ground between fan-service and being an entertaining movie, and I had fun with it, which is more than what I could say about other game adaptations. It doesn’t shove the game references in your face or completely destroy them, even if you’ve never played the Tomb Raider games you can watch this movie and figure out visually what was probably taken from the games.

            Specifically, this film takes more references from the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot game than the original, which I think is for the best. Don’t get me wrong, I have fond memories of playing the original games on PlayStation as a kid and will always hold a place in my heart but let’s face it, the reboot gave Lara Croft more of a character than the original where they passed her off as a sex symbol with pixelated breasts for teenage boys and that’s it.

            I was concerned at first with Alicia Vikander being chosen to play Lara since the 2001 Angelina Jolie film is admittedly a guilty pleasure of mine, but after seeing her take on it, she plays the part quite well. She’s strong but has her limits, adventurous, can deliver a one-liner or funny joke once in a while, arrogant but never to the point where she’s unlikable, and Vikander already won me over as an actress with two of her movies in a row.

            But like all video game adaptations, Tomb Raider does have its flaws, the very beginning of the movie is pointless and doesn’t really connect to the story (Like a less enraging Killing Joke opening), the dialogue is really bad and corny, and the story gets predictable at times and falls victim to a lot of adventure movie clichés. If you’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy, or even the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movie, you pretty much know the plot of this one.

            Fortunately, the problems don’t ruin the movie and as a whole, it’s fun and proof that a decent video game movie can be made with the right amount of care. Plus, we got Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, Rampage, and Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 coming out later on this year, maybe Tomb Raider was the movie that made Hollywood wake up.