(film review) - Ready Player One

If I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, I've not seen a Steven Spielberg movie in a while.  Well directed by anyway, as he does produce a lot of movies.  The last directed movie I saw was The Adventures of Tintin and the last produced movie, well executive produced anyway, Transformers: The Last Knight.  While I fell asleep watching Tintin (but I did like it, I was just exhausted), I can say I didn't really like Transformers: The Last Knight because although it was the usual Transformers fun, it was essentially not that great.  So, seeing the trailer for this movie and all the easter eggs, I knew this was going to have, made for a really interesting watch.  And having seen the movie, I can tell you exactly how it was.

In the real world 18 year old Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), otherwise known as his avatar handle Parzival in the virtual world is known as a Gunter.  He lives in Columbus Ohio with his Aunt and does what most people do in their living conditions, escape reality to enter the virtual world of the Oasis.  The Oasis (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow is a place where you can do whatever you want, go wherever you want and be whomever you want to be.  Wade aka Parzival is an avid gift hunter and spends his time tracking gifts and collecting coins, but when James Halliday dies, a prerecorded message went out to all users enabling them to own and control the Oasis if they are able to find the 3 keys hidden in the Oasis.  But with power, comes corruption and corporate.  Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the CEO of Innovative Online Industries also wants to seek out the 3 hidden keys to control the Oasis himself, so the ultimate hunt and a game of cat and mouse ensues as everyone in the Oasis tries to track down all the clues to finding the hidden keys with a powerful and hungry Nolan who will stop at nothing, even if it means real world crime, just to achieve his goal.

I tried not to spoil this movie by giving too much away, but with that said, the plot it straight forward, but the fun comes with the chase, the tension and of course, the many many many easter eggs littered throughout the movie.  An Easter Egg is a item/object that represents real life or universal pop culture.  It is a message, image, or feature hidden in a video game, film, or other, usually electronic, medium and it's sole purpose is to be found but may represent, ie. real life or pop culture.  A lot of films will do this, but if you are still unsure and you have played video games or have watched TV/Movies over the years and still do not know what an Easter Egg is, THIS movie will DEFINITELY have you understand what one is before the movie is even quarter of it's way through.  Another reason as to what makes this movie fun to watch is EXACTLY this and how many you can find.  Steven Spielberg (and just like the book this movie is based on) uses all the references he possibly can grabbing from past directing work, games and Warner Bros. content.  This means that, not only is the DeLorean time machine from the film Back to the Future franchise directed by Robert Zemeckis in it, a film which is under Steven Spielberg's production company and Spielberg being the mentor of Robert, but there is a very brief Batman cameo, a Warner Bros intellectual Property and a prominent Iron Giant cameo among many many more.  Not to give too much away but you will see popular game characters and as we are in the world of gaming, a lot of things you will come to recognise as a gamer, like a lot of things you'd come to recognise as a watcher of movies.  Wreck it Ralph did something similar.

Spielberg will have you rewatching this movie over and over again because not only is it fun, but the easter eggs alone will keep you busy.  The acting is superb although cheesy in some places and if i'm honest, I didn't realise the film would have more than a few curse words, but if you are a gamer, curse words are apart of your vocabulary.  Although I had only seen Tye as Cyclops of the recent X-Men franchise at this point, he was very good in this movie and acting along side Ben, made for good tension and drama.  It was also nice to see, Hannah John-Kamen, who I had recently seen in Tomb Raider and is in the up and coming Ant-Man and the Wasp.

If you like Nostalgia, movies, gaming and that classic Steven Spielberg directed movies such as Batteries Not Included or anything else you found fun in the 80's, this movie is definitely for you!  Plus, there is no way you will see EVERY Easter Egg in one viewing, have a re-watch.

(film review) - Black Panther

Captain America: The Winter Soldier, was a great film.  Arguably for me, the best stand-alone movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Captain America: Civil War, was a great film.  My opinion on the Russo Brothers second movie with Captain America comes in as a tie for me with it's predecessor.  I just don't think it passes TWS, BUT it does do a great job in introducing the Black Panther character flawlessly to steamroll right through this movie.  You got to see this character, his values, how he presents himself, part of his story AND a glimpse of his country.  As soon as he arrives, it's absolutely no nonsense and you immediately loved the character and like me, wanted to know more.  Now having his own movie, it is a wonder how this movie will go.  Directed by the young Ryan Coogler, who also directed Fruitville Station & Creed, Ryan does the most masterful job on showing us who Black Panther is and where he comes from, Wakanda.

Picking up shortly after the events of Civil War, The Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) returns home to be greeted by his mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) and his Royal Guard the Dora Milaje.  Now that his father, T'Chaka (John Kani) is dead, T'Challa must now take up his Kingship and rule his nation of Wakanda as their new King.  With the emergence of a long time enemy of Wakanda Ulyesses Klaue (Andy Serkis), T'Challa must go on a mission to take down this enemy, but when the mission goes wrong on 'Day-One', this sets some uneasiness with some of the locals and also coincidentally brings forth a new foe Erik 'Killmonger' Setvens (Michael B. Jordan), who is a direct threat to T'Challa and the Throne.  T'Challa must overcome these challenges and threats to himself, his people and the throne.

This is a great and very layered film.  From the beginning of the movie until the very end after the Credits.  The Social commentary and political standpoints in this movie are very apparent, but do not beat you over the head with it.  They address current issues in real life flawlessly as well as negating stereotypes and turning them on it's head.  Very culturally aware and without coming across preachy, is able to drip feed a tiny bit of history of the real world, what has been done, what we do as people and what is likely to happen.  Baring in mind that the MCU is set in the "real world", this movie does a lot to change the narrative a little and opens you up to ideas of what could have been, could be and how things should be.

At first, when I heard and read reviews of this film, I was slightly disappointed once I had finished watching it, but then I asked myself, "what could have been done better?" I thought about this long and hard until I decided that although the film isn't perfect and should have been a little longer, ultimately I needed more from the villain.  This made me realise that, not only was the villain great, his story was also great.

The visuals are amazing.  The colours usedThe acting in this movie from everyone was excellent.  Sure some accents were not THAT great, but you understood where they were going with it and what was being said.  The costumes and outfits were amazing and very well realised and detailed.  Pulling a lot of real life culture into this movies and you could see it.  I've not read a Black Panther comic book, BUT the imagery looked as though it was taken directly from the comics.  The fights scenes although, not a lot, were all pretty good.  The mission fight was just excellent in every way and the use of the camera and the angles were great.  The last fight scene was not THAT great, a little CGI heavy, but they were awful and did not take away from the story.  I do believe that Marvel did a better job in giving us what they have done for a few films now, with their bad guy.  Mentioning the bad guy; excellent.  You understood his motives and although sometimes you just want to hate the bad guy and he must be defeated, he makes you feel sympathetic to his cause.  The film is VERY funny in places, may actually make you cry and I walked away from the film ranting and raving about the character M'Baku (Winston Duke).  People will have their favourites but he was mine.

A lot of people may want different things from this movie due to it being a comic book/superhero movie, but this movie is much bigger than that.  The fact that it didn't really feel like a superhero and it feeling different, but still feeling the same was an achievement which walks the same line as The Winter Soldier for me.  A stand-alone movie that raises the bar and connects to the larger MCU story-arc and will definitely get you excited for Infinity War.  Go watch it...you may even watch it more than once because it is THAT entertaining.

(film review) - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Unless I'm attending a secret screening and on the off chance, I have not seen the movie trailer for the film I'm about to see, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY for me to sit down in a cinema and watch a movie I have no clue about.  That being said, a friend of mine told me to watch the trailer as it is funny, but I only went to see this movie because it was something different from the superhero and sci-fi movies I usually review.  I mean, c'mon guys, I do watch other movies, heck, I watch a ton of movies and a lot of them have not been reviewed on here yet, but as it is 2018, I'm going to do my best.  And with THAT said, this movie; I thought was some small town story about some small town issues of family dramas and something that doesn't interest me a great deal.  And boy was I right and soo damn wrong at the same time.  I'll explain.

3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri is about a white woman who lives in a small town who has some outrageously terrifying, horrific and brutal actions taken out on her daughter in which leaves her daughter dead.  Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), having mourned for her child, puts up 3 controversial Billboards for the attention of William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), the towns revered Chief of Police which leaves the town divided.   Not only has nothing been done to capture the culprit, half the town side with Mildred whilst the other half are against her and her methods.  When mother's boy Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell) with a penchant for violence gets involved, things only get from bad to worse for Mildred while she does everything she can to get justice for her daughter.

I honestly thought this film was brilliant.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Very dark humour, in a crime film written and directed by Martin McDonagh which not only pulls on your heart strings but also makes you laugh out loud if you are not already crying.  I almost cried a few times because I kept thinking and putting myself in Mildred's situation.  The acting in this is great, Frances is excellent, Woody is excellent and Sam is also excellent.  I mean the acting is great all around and the dialogue is more than witty, not to mention very tongue in cheek, but the movie comes together very well.  Was shocked when it ended, but wasn't surprised.

A great film I would recommend to anyone who likes crime films and/or comedy.  I think the best way to think of this might be to think of 7 Psychopaths, same director.