Steven Spielberg and the movie ‘Ready Player One’

The science fiction, fantasy, and action movie Ready Player One (2018) played to warm audience reviews and clever mixes of graphics and reality set in the hypothetical year 2045. The early premise of the film is of a borderline dystopian world where the real world is less appealing than the virtual oasis world built by a man who has recently dies. With his death, control of the virtual world, OASIS, is up for grabs.

(Tye Sheridan as Perzival / Wade Watts in Ready Player One).

Tye Sheridan is introduced from the beginning of Ready Player One as Wade Watts. Wade Watts lives in a shanty district of the booming metropolis of Columbus, Ohio. The year is 2045, and Wade lives alone with his aunt following the death of his parents. Wade is shy, yet immerses himself in the fantasy gaming world called the OASIS.

(Lena Waithe as Aech / Helen in Ready Player One).

Wade’s alter ego in the OASIS is Perzival, which is the means through which we are introduced to his best friend. Lena Waithe plays Aech / Helen, who we learn much further into the movie drives a United States Postal Service truck. The friendship first serves as a means of introducing the larger plot of the story. The friendship aids in helping move the action of the movie along later in the story while also bringing the story to its resolution. The relationship is warm and occasionally amusing.

(Mark Rylance as James Donovan Halliday / Anorak in Ready Player One).

The fantasy world of OASIS was created by the character James Donovan Halliday. Mark Rylance plays Halliday, whose alter ego in the OASIS world is Anorak. Halliday sets the adventure underpinning the movie in motion by setting ownership for his company, the company that owns and operates OASIS, up for grabs to the gamer that can unlock the three keys embedded within the OASIS. These keys allow access to the hidden Easter Egg in the game, which is the object of the hunt.

(Steven Spielberg, the director of Ready Player One).

Like any good adventure film including the work of Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One found a way with the film’s writers to bring nostalgia of the gaming world and popular culture into the film. Spielberg directed the Ready Player One, and brought nostalgia of the Atari 2600 gaming system, the Atari game Adventure, the movie The Shining (1980), and numerous songs from the 1980’s (including Jump by Van Halen and Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears).

(Ben Mendelsohn as Nolan Sorrento, head of Innovation Online Industries, in Ready Player One).

Nolan Sorrento, as played by Ben Mendelsohn, is the chief antagonist to Wade Watts in the hunt for the OASIS Easter Egg. Sorrento joins in the hunt through manipulation, riches, and a team of corporate helpers seeking to take advantage of the collective ingenuity of Wade Watts and the forces that align with Watts and his alter ego, Perzival. From the perspective of this PG-13 movie, the conflict is properly intense and appropriate for the movie rating.

(Olivia Cooke as Art3mis / Samantha Cook, a gunter, in Ready Player One).

Art3mis, who also goes by Samantha Cook when outside the OASIS world, is played by Olivia Cooke. The female lead character for Ready Player One plays every bit the strong character to Wade Watts in the film. Her role determines the movies resolution along with providing the mutual love interest that forms between herself and Wade / Perzival. The resolution to the love story is proves important to the larger narrative of the movie while mirroring the takeaway message the movie offers to the audience.

Ernest Cline, one of the writers earning screenplay credit for the movie, also wrote the book Ready Player One. The book was written in 2011, though the favorable movie review is not offered with an awareness of having read the book. Zak Penn was the other screenplay writer for the film. My overall rating of the movie is 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, February 9, 2019

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie review

Set upon arrival in the 1920’s New York City where witchcraft and sorcery are synonyms for Prohibition and poverty of the age, the hard times of 1920’s New York City are central to place for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016). The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, that people recognize from the books and movies, are clearly presented and present in this movie.

Almost glancing references are made to Hogwarts and Albus Dumbledore in the Fantastic Beasts story, which is accurate to the backstory of Dumbledore (supposedly born in 1881). With Fantastic Beasts existing before the more contemporary stories of Harry, Hermione, their parents, or even Tom Riddle, the timeline is satisfying for ringing true. The glancing references to language between the sides of the Atlantic Ocean (the United Kingdom versus the United States) was for my part a cute touch.

Fantastic Beasts is a good family movie, which is the focus of this post. I liked the movie and enjoyed it.

The tone hits you as less intense / dark than the last three Harry Potter movies, which are based on the books Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Scamander does a respectably British in mannerism protagonist through the movie, with mates, foils, and fantastic beasts in Kowalski the baker, Graves, Chastity, Modesty, and Credence Barebone, the Shaw family, and others. The Grindelwald mystery, which scores as a background story for our hero through much of Fantastic Beasts, does reward the clever viewer in search of a mystery.

Finally, remember that while Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is definitely of the Harry Potter universe, my strong recommendation is that this movie works in isolation. That is, the movie is an uplifting standalone experience. I’d be amiss for not mentioning that the movie does earn its PG-13 rating in the United States. Grade = B+.

Matt – Friday, December 30, 2016