Ready Player One

In the Oasis, you can be anyone – or anything – you like.

(2018) Science Fiction (Warner Brothers) Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen, Ralph Ineson, Susan Lynch, Clare Higgins, Laurence Spellman, Perdita Weeks, Joel MacCormack, Kit Connor, Leo Heller, Antoniio Mattera, Ronke Adekolujo. Directed by Steven Spielberg

 

In a world where the economy has gone beyond stagnant and where people have generally lost hope of ever improving their lot, there’s always an escape into an electronic world where one can be whoever they choose to be and play games day and night. Is this America 2018? No, this is the world of 2045 as posited by Ready Player One.

In this dystopian vision people like Wade Wells (Sheridan) live in the Stacks, a kind of mobile home park in which the ready-made homes are stacked one on top of the other into rickety towers, but he spends his life in the Oasis, an artificial environment where most people spend their time. The creator of the Oasis, James Halliday (Rylance) has passed away and is offering his fortune of hundreds of billions to whoever is savvy enough to find three Easter eggs to get three keys to unlock control of the Oasis.

Aiding Wade (whose avatar is Parzival, a kind of anime video game character) is Art3mis (Cooke), a gaming legend, and Wade’s longtime Oasis friend Aich (Waithe). Opposing is the evil CEO of the IOI Corporation Sorrento (Mendelsohn) who wants control of the Oasis for his own. As the real world begins to bleed into the Oasis and vice versa, the stakes grow increasingly higher.

The movie is littered with 80s and 90s pop culture references (as is the soundtrack), far too many to list. That should give the movie a shelf life as compulsive sorts will doubtlessly watch it endlessly to see if they can spot them all. It is truly nirvana for gamers, geeks and nerds particularly those of a certain age who grew up in the 80s with these characters and references.

Sheridan and Cooke are curiously flat here – both have performed far better in other projects – and have little chemistry. Although the visuals are amazing, the plot is a bit predictable even if you haven’t read Ernest Cline’s source novel. It can also be a bit of a visual overload with all the images coming at you. Still, this is one of Spielberg’s most imaginative films this decade and that alone makes this worth seeing.

REASONS TO GO: The CGI is absolutely fantastic! For geeks of a certain age, the film may bring a nostalgic tear to the corner of the eye.
REASONS TO STAY: The two leads are less than scintillating.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some videogame-style violence as well as real life violence, partial nudity, some profanity and some bloody images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: John Williams was unavailable to score the film because he was busy working on another Spielberg movie, The Post. This will be only the third Spielberg-directed movie not to feature Williams writing the score.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/26/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 73% positive reviews. Metacritic: 64/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Eating Animals

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New Releases for the Week of March 30, 2018

READY PLAYER ONE

(Warner Brothers) Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Ralph Ineson, Claire Higgins, Laurence Spellman, Perdita Weeks. Directed by Steven Spielberg

Based on a bestselling book by Ernest Cline, the movie shows a dreary future in which there are few jobs and little hope. When the owner of the OASIS, a virtual reality world which is also the richest corporation in the world, dies suddenly it is revealed that there is a hidden Easter Egg that will give the finder control of the corporation and a virtually unlimited fortune. A young gamer sets out to claim the ultimate prize and his knowledge of the 1980s may be his big advantage

See the trailer, interviews, video featurettes, motion posters and SXSW premiere coverage here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, DBOX, DBOX-3D, Dolby Atmos, IMAX, IMAX 3D, RPX, RPX-3D, XD, XD-3D
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release (opens Thursday)
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, nudity and language)

Baaghi 2

(Fox Star) Disha Patani, Tiger Shroff, Randeep Hooda, Manoj Bajpayee. A detective is hired by an ex-lover to find their daughter, who has been kidnapped. Baaghi 3 has already been approved and will be filming later this year.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: NR  

Birthmarked

(Vertical) Matthew Goode, Toni Collette, Fionnula Flanagan, Michael Smiley. Two scientists quit their jobs to take on the ultimate scientific experiment; to determine once and for all the nature vs. nurture question. To do this, they decide to raise three children contrary to their genetic predispositions. Have fun with that.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: NR

Finding Your Feet

(Roadside Attraction) Imelda Staunton, Celia Imrie, Timothy Spall, Joanna Lumley. After discovering her husband of 25 years has been cheating on her, an upper class British woman moves in with her Bohemian older sister. The two women agree on virtually nothing but when the elder sibling gets the younger involved in her dance class, there are sea changes ahead for both of them.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for suggestive material, brief drug use and brief strong language)

Flower

(The Orchard) Zoey Deutch Kathryn Hahn, Adam Scott, Joey Morgan. A teenage girl who is beginning to experiment sexually forms an unlikely and unorthodox relationship with her mentally unstable step-brother.

See the trailer and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for crude sexual content and language throughout, graphic nude drawings, some drug content and a brief violent image)

Foxtrot

(Sony Classics) Lior Ashkenazy, Sarah Adler, Yonathan Shiray, Shira Haas. An Israeli family must come to terms with their own dysfunction when things go terribly wrong at their son’s isolated military outpost. This was Israel’s official submission for the 2018 Foreign Language Oscar.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some sexual content including graphic images, and brief drug use)

God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

(Pure Flix) David A.R. White, Tatum O’Neil, Ted McGinley, John Corbett. A pastor must reaffirm his faith after his church burns to the ground.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith-Based Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including some violence and suggestive material)

Goldstone

(Lightyear) Aaron Pederson, Jacki Weaver, David Wenham, David Gulpilil. A young indigenous detective arrives in an Australian frontier town on a missing persons inquiry. His investigation opens up a web of corruption and deceit that he couldn’t have expected. He must work with the local police detective if he is to solve the case – or survive it.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: NR  

The Last Movie Star

(A24) Burt Reynolds, Chevy Chase, Ellar Coltrane, Clark Duke. An aging movie star must reluctantly face the reality that his best years are behind him. Like all of us, he must adjust to and accept the reality of growing old. This was released initially exclusively for DirecTV subscribers and is now making a brief theatrical run as well as becoming available on VOD.

See the trailer, a clip and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for some sexuality and partial nudity)

Tyler Perry’s Acrimony

(Lionsgate) Taraji P. Henson, Lyriq Bent, Crystle Stewart, Jazmyn Simon. They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. When a faithful wife discovers that her husband has been cheating on her, she reaches the boiling point and means to take revenge on his ass – by any means necessary.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong sexuality, graphic nudity, language and a brief disturbing image)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

The Cage Fighter
First Reformed
Outside In
Rangasthalam

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Journey’s End
Rangasthalam

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Caught
Rangasthalam
Status Update

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

None

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Caught
Finding Your Feet
Ready Player One

As Above, So Below

Perdita Weeks wonders if there isn’t an easier way to make it into Hollywood.

(2014) Horror (Universal/Legendary) Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, Francois Civil, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar, Cosme Castro, Hamid Djavadan, Theo Cholbi, Emy Levy, Roger Van Hool, Olivia Csiky Trnka, Hellyette Bess, Aryan Rahimian, Samuel Aouizerate, Kaya Blocksage. Directed by John Erick Dowdle

Below the streets of Paris there is another city, a city of the dead. The legendary catacombs are where the remains of some say as many as eight million Parisians rest. Bones stacked neatly in ghoulish patterns – this is a real place, an actual tourist attraction in the City of Light. How perfect a setting it would be for a horror movie.

Scarlett (Weeks) is going to oblige us on that score. She believes that the legendary Philosopher’s Stone which European alchemists of the 15th century famously believed could change base metals into gold and allow the possessor to live forever, also rests in a secret chamber off the catacombs. She is a bit nutty on the subject – her dad (Van Hool) searched his entire life for the Stone and was ridiculed by the scientific community for it. His suicide only drove her into further obsession to find the artifact.

After nearly getting buried alive in Iran to photograph an elaborate Rosetta’s stone-like thing that would allow her to translate a map that she believes will lead her to the stone, the determined young scientist – who has several PhDs to her credit despite her youth – heads to Paris to find George (Feldman) who can translate the Aramaic and allow the symbols to be properly read.

George, once abandoned in Turkey by Scarlett so that she could continue her quest, is less than enthusiastic about helping her and her omnipresent cameraman Benji (Hodge) who is documenting the search. However, he agrees to put her in contact with urban spelunkers Papillon (Civil), Souxie (Lambert) and Zed (Marhyar) who agree to lead her to the place on her map even though it appears on no credible maps of the catacombs.

Once they get down there beyond the paths where tourists tread, strange things begin to happen. George, who is forced to join them by circumstances beyond his control, is definitely uneasy and Benji who is a bit claustrophobic is downright ready to turn on his heels and head back to the world above, sense that there is something not quite right and Papillon, who knows the area better than anyone except for La Taupe (Castro), a mole-like spelunker who went down into a forbidden tunnel and never was seen again. Of course, you know which tunnel they’re going to head down into – and where it leads may be the last place anyone rational wants to go.

Right now is a really good time to be a horror film, with an abundance of talented young up-and-coming directors showing immense promise and delivering in some cases some extraordinary horror films. While Dowdle qualifies as the former, his latest effort doesn’t qualify as the latter but don’t be put off – this is a very solid and entertaining horror movie that takes full advantage of its setting.

The cast is largely unknown although Mad Men fans might recognize Feldman but do solid jobs in roles that are fairly rote horror characters. I have to say Marhyar has one of the best “oh, crap!” expressions I’ve seen ever. It does make for occasional comedy relief.

The film is presented in a found footage format, which to my mind was totally unnecessary. We spend large chunks of time wandering down tunnels lit by headlamps and flashlights. Sure, this can be creepy but over the course of an hour and a half it gets old, plus because much of the movie is shot with GoPro devices the image quality is murky in places.

However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an off-the-charts creepiness factor going on here and Dowdle knows what he’s doing when it comes to ratcheting up the tension to high levels. While there is a lot here that’s unremarkable, overall this is a much better than average movie when it comes to horror and in a year where the bar has been set fairly high for big studio horror pictures this one comes in right in the middle of the pack.

REASONS TO GO: Genuinely creepy setting. Some terrific scares.
REASONS TO STAY: Found footage is definitely passé and in this case, unnecessary. Could have shaved about ten minutes off.
FAMILY VALUES:  Plenty of terror and violence, some of it bloody. There’s also pretty much non-stop cursing.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The first movie to be released in Legendary’s new deal with Universal after years at Warner Brothers.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/13/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 28% positive reviews. Metacritic: 38/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Intermedio
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Mood Indigo