Ready Player One Review

"From filmmaker Steven Spielberg comes the science fiction action adventure “Ready Player One,” based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name, which has become a worldwide phenomenon. The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger."

If I had to pick a favorite director, it would probably be Steven Spielberg since he has done so many different types of films (I believe Jurassic Park and Schindler's List came out the same year) and most of them end up being excellent. And even though some of his recent real life films like Lincoln have been really good, many film fans have missed the 70's and 80's Spielberg that gave us classic blockbusters like Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, etc. Well I can tell you that with Ready Player One, that Spielberg is back.

I'll admit that I haven't read the book that this film is based on, but this film rocks in my opinion. The biggest positive I can say about this film is that it captures adventure really well. Many films can have great sci fi and action, but not all of them have that pure adventure feel. Spielberg is the master of adventure films (Raiders Of The Lost Ark is the best one IMO) and manages to bring that feel to this film along with the great sci fi, VFX, and action.

All of the performances in this film are really good. Tye Sheridan as Wade is a likable lead does a good job carrying this film. Olivia Cooke is also very strong as the female lead Sam and she and Wade have really good/believable chemistry on screen. Mark Rylance as Halliday was excellent as expected (Third time working with Spielberg after Bridge Of Spies and BFG) and even though Ben Mendelsohn is playing the cliched "evil corporate overlord", his performance works and you can tell he's having fun with it.

While the trailers looked pretty cool, many people were concerned about how many pop culture references/cameos would be in this film and if it would become Emoji Movie like pandering. Thankfully it's not like that. Most of the cameos and references feel natural (Which makes them more cool and special) other than maybe one or two of them, and some of the iconic characters like Iron Giant (Hope this film gets more people to watch Iron Giant) and King Kong actually do serve a purpose in the story.

The film also has a good moral/commentary about how sometimes people can get too caught up in the virtual world and forget about important/great stuff in the real world. It leads to some funny moments about how literately ANYBODY could be your friend in an online game. And the message doesn't feel forced or like they're beating you over the head. Felt perfectly natural to me.

John Williams was originally going to compose the film, but instead worked on Spielberg's The Post and Alan Silvestri took over. I was kind of disappointed to hear about this since I consider Williams the greatest composer of all time, but man did Silvestri kill it. His score is exciting and very retro. I might even put it on par with his Predator and Avengers themes.

Overall, Ready Player One is a fantastic and fun sci fi film with a great sense of adventure, likable characters, good commentary on our society, and nostalgia that doesn't feel forced. Please go and see it. This film deserves better box office than it's getting.

4/5

What do you think of the film? Comment and let me know. And thanks for reading. :0)

Possible Huge Venom News

Unlike a lot of people, I'm really looking forward to Sony's Venom film. Sure it's not going to be tied to Spider-Man, but that doesn't mean it can't be great. They've got the director of Zombieland and very selective Oscar nominee Tom Hardy on board and are going for a dark, R Rated, sci fi horror/thriller tone. As a fan of the character this gets me very excited and hopeful.

Many fans have been wanting to see what this new version of Venom will look like. We didn't see his design in the teaser, but that's understandable considering the film had just wrapped filming and the FX wouldn't be ready to show that (No. That rumor of Venom only appearing in the last 5 minutes of the film is false. Tom Hardy debunked that on his Instagram account). But some possible good news might be here for those wanting to see more. A photo has leaked online showing that Sony could be partnering to promote Venom with Brisk Ice Tee and we get to see Venom's face on the Dark Cherry Limade bottle.

IF this is legit (At this time neither Sony or Brisk have confirmed it), I love the look of his face. It's the classic Venom we all know and love. I can see that savage put playful look on his face. And if you pay attention, you'll notice that his eyes are the exact same ones from the teaser poster (Which leads me to suspect that this is real). Hopefully this possible leak will inspire Sony to release the next trailer soon.

The other big Venom rumor going around comes from Bleeding Cool who reported yesterday that Woody Harrelson may be playing Carnage in the film. Yes I know they posted it on April Fool's Day, but they've said they no longer do those joke stories and we've heard Harrelson might have a part in this film since December (Although he's the only actor that wasn't in any of the leaked set photos which tells me his role in the film is probably small).

I would love it if this rumor is true. Woody Harrelson is brilliant actor (Just saw Three Billboards last month which he was incredible in) and I can really see him portraying someone truly evil and insane like Cletus Kassidy. And I specifically said Cletus because I don't think we'll see him as Carnage in this first film. I think he'll have a very small part as a normal serial killer and if the film is a hit, he'll become Carnage in Venom 2. I'm okay with this since we know that this is an origin story for Eddie Brock and the Venom suit and they'll be fighting the Life Foundation. You gotta save some stuff for later.

What do you think of this news? Does it get you more excited for the film or does it do nothing for you? Comment and let me know. And thanks for reading. :0)

Unpopular Opinion On Citizen Kane

(Sorry that I didn't have a post yesterday. Very busy Easter Sunday for me. Will get some more up today.)

I always get excited to watch older classic films that I've never seen before and one of the movies I was the most excited to see was the 1941 Orson Welles classic Citizen Kane. Many people consider it to be one of the greatest film ever made if the THE greatest (I believe it was Roger Ebert's favorite film as well). So I watched it last week and once the film ended I thought "Really? This is the greatest masterpiece of all time?"

I was so bored throughout most of the film. I can appreciate older black and white films like The Wizard Of Oz (Though it's not all black and white), Psycho, Rear Window, etc, but they still have to be good well paced films. To me Citizen Kane wasn't. It starts off pretty well with the death of Charles Kane and us learning about his history through the newsreel montage. But after that the movie becomes so painfully slow. I can love a good slow paced film (Modern ones like King's Speech and older ones like Rear Window), but if you're going to do that you have to make sure it's done well and the scenes don't drag out for too long. And for me, a lot of the scenes in Citizen Kane just went on for way too long and could've been easily shorten to improve the pacing while still keeping those scenes effective and important.

Most of the acting isn't great here either aside from Orson Welles. I get it was made in the 40's and acting was different back then compared to now, but I could still tell it wasn't great. This was the first film for many of the actors and it shows.

I will say that it's a brilliantly edited film though. Not just with the newsreel opening, but most of the scene transitions are brilliant, effective, and creative (Especially for 1940's standards).

And with the Rosebud ending, I'll admit that I unfortunately found out about the ending before seeing the film and I probably would've had a different reaction had I went in totally blind. But early spoilers don't effect my overall thoughts on the film. Even if I didn't know that Rosebud was his sled, I still wouldn't have cared because I wasn't into the film or it's characters.

So yeah, that's my unpopular opinion on Citizen Kane. We all have some films that many people love that we just don't get (This and the original Halloween are those films for me). And I'm not trying to say that people are wrong for loving this film while I don't. All film is subjective and I'm very happy this is a classic for the majority of people.

What do you think of the film? Overrated or Flawless? Comment and let me know. And thanks for reading. :0)

The Conflicting Aquaman Test Screenings

Ah, early test screenings. Sometimes they say the film is the best thing ever and sometimes they say it's a mess. That's happening now with Warner Brothers and DC's upcoming Aquaman film. Last month it was reported that they screened an early rough cut of the film and the audience loved it. And recently, a new rumor came out that the first cut of the film may have some issues. What do we believe.

Honestly, I try my best not to get too worked up about test screening reactions or early fan reactions. I remember before Fantastic Four, Justice League, and Transformers 4 all had great early fan reactions and look what happened. And Wonder Woman was rumored to have bad test screenings even though the film ended up being awesome. I have faith that Aquaman will be a really good film since James Wan is directing it and I liked Jason Mamoa's version of the character in Justice League even though the film wasn't great. I don't think WB will meddle with Wan like they did with David Ayer and Zack Snyder since he has great relationship with the studio, helmed a billion dollar film with Furious 7, and set up another valuable franchise for the studio with the Conjuring films. And if I'm right about it's quality, I think it could have Wonder Woman like box office results.

What do you think of these test screening rumors? What do you believe? Comment and let me know. And thanks for reading. :0)

Assassin's Creed In Depth Review/Analysis

Assassin's Creed has been an interesting film for me. I was really excited to see it because of how great the concept and world sounded and the extremely talented cast and director (At that time, I hadn't played any of the games. I've since played some of the first one.). I saw the film on opening day last year after reading and watching a lot of the awful reviews and went in with lowered expectations. But surprisingly, me and my grandmother (Who knew nothing about AC) kind of enjoyed it. I still remembering feeling a little disappointed though and I gave the film a 2.5/5. But the film never left my head and the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated it despite it's problems.

Back in October, I rewatched the film on HBO to do this review and posted it on my Reddit account. Now I'm ready to post it here. I want to talk about what worked, what didn't work, what was cut, and the future of the franchise. Before I start though, I want to make something clear. My goal with this post isn't to say "I'm right and all the haters just didn't get it". I'm just posting my personal opinion and explaining why I feel this way. You can agree or disagree with it and that's fine. All film is subjective.

With all that said, let's get started!

The film starts off really well with an opening text crawl telling us all about how the Assassins have protected the Apple Of Eden from the Knights Of Templar for centuries. We also get our first taste of the fantastic score by Jed Kurzel (Brother of director Justin Kurzel). It goes from a very haunting theme (Similar to his Macbeth score) to a drum beating action suspense theme throughout the film and it's really well done. We then get are first scene with Aguilar being accepted into the Creed and we sense that he and Maria have a very close and romantic relationship.

Once we cut to 1976, I felt that the choice in music felt really out of place. Entrance Song by The Black Angels isn't a bad song, but it doesn't feel like a good fit for this type of film. I would've preferred if they used a score instead of a song. I also feel like there was a big missed opportunity in this scene to show what happened to Callum Lynch after he escaped from the Abstergo team. We find out later in the film that he was a big troublemaker as a teen and that he was arrested for killing a pimp. Why didn't they show us that? And why did he kill this pimp? According to the AC Movie Novelization, Cal developed a deep hatred for men attacking women because of his father killing his mother and he murdered a man who was abusing an underage prostitute. Because of that and his previous record, he was sentenced to death. They shouldn't have cut that out.

When I originally saw the film, I thought all the performances were very good except for Marion Cotillard's Sofia Rikkin. It surprised me because she's obviously a great actress, but I felt like she was just going through the motions. But rewatching the film, I feel like her performance and the character weren't the problem, I feel like it was the script having her being an exposition machine (Mainly when she's first introduced). Exposition dialogue isn't always bad and it's sometimes needed in films like this, but if you overuse it, it can start to feel annoying/tired.

One character that I feel was very underused was Moussa. Michael K Williams is great in the role and has a lot of charisma, but I wish that we got to see Moussa and the other Abstergo prisoners interact with Lynch more so that when they come together at the end of the film and protect the apple, it feels more real and believable. In the novelization, you get a couple of more conversations between him and the other Abstargo prisoners that I wish were kept in the final cut of the film.

Most people agree that the best scenes in the movie are the scenes in 1492 where we get to see all of the big Assassin action and lore and that more of the film should've taken place there. I agree. These scenes are really well done. Adam Akrapaw does a great job with the cinematography and Justin Kurzel's visual style that he used in Macbeth works really well in these scenes. Most of the fights and chase scenes are also really impressive (All of it is real BTW, no CGI). I used to have a problem with the film cutting back in forth to Aguilar being a badass to Callum in the Animus, but I've grown t appreciate the choice more. Yes, some of the action scenes in the past to have the quick cut editing that I hate, and that bothered me, but there's still a lot of terrific action to make up for that. I also really liked the romance between Aguilar and Maria. It felt genuine and the actors had really good chemistry. You do feel something when Maria tells Aguilar to let her die so that the apple can be protected and the Creed can live on and when Aguilar just starts beating the Templar who killed his beloved (And his entire family according to the novelization).

Another one of the films best scenes is when Cal reunites with his father and the heartbreaking truth is revealed. Joseph Lynch was asked by his wife to murder both her and Cal so that Abstergo couldn't capture them and locate the Apple. But killing his wife was just too much so he told Cal to run away. Fassbender and Gleeson are incredible in this scene and it shows how damaged Cal really is.

One scene that felt really out of place though was Callum singing "I'm Crazy" by Patsy Cline right before he's hooked up into the Animus. I get that's the song that played when he saw that his mother was dead. But it just feels really out of place in a movie about Assassins and Templars. And if you want to hear Fassbender sing, go watch the movie Frank on Netflix.

Speaking of Michael Fassbender, I already mentioned that everyone does a really good job in this film, but Fassbender really sells being both a mentally disturbed man and a badass master Assassin. One small moment in the film that I didn't notice before was that when Sofia is explaining where he is, he just starts to smile and laugh and have that "What the F am I listening too?" face. He's one of my favorite actors working and got me to really care about a kind of underdeveloped character.

About the last scenes in the film, some people thought it felt too quick. I do agree with that. I feel like it could've been extended a bit and show us Cal, Moussa, and the others getting to know each other more while tracking down Jeremy Irons's Alan Rikkin. I don't have a problem with the way Alan is killed though. I know some people wanted a bigger final battle, but in reality there's no way Alan could beat Cal and the others in a fight. And with the shot of Cal jumping of the building, I prefer the deleted scene version where the other assassins jumped first and and Cal stands still, looking a little unsure, but then he sees a vision of his mother and is reminded about his destiny and finally jumps of the roof and accepts it. Great ending and the one that should've been in the film IMO.

Speaking of deleted scenes, let's talk about some of them.

The biggest surprise was that they removed a character from the film. A teenager named Lara, a descendant of Maria and an adoptive daughter to Sophia. I felt like this character added a lot of nice emotional moments in the film with Cal and shouldn't have been cut.

There's also a scene where The Bleeding Effect (Which works very well in the film BTW) causes Callum to not only see his ancestor, but the ancestors of Moussa and the other prisoners. Pretty cool and a nice scene for fans of the games.

There's an alternate ending where all of the prisoners are killed except for Cal and he escapes alone. I feel like i was a good idea to change this because it would've felt very abrupt.

And finally, there's one where Joseph actually fights off the guards at the end, dies in front of his son, and Cal (Now knowing the full truth) forgives him. Cal and the others than say the oath of the Creed. I feel like this was a better death scene for Joseph than the one in the final cut. We get to actually see him fight, it's a better way to end Cal's hatred of him, and gives Brendan Gleeson more to do in the film.

Could we ever see an extended cut of this film? I wouldn't bet my money on it, but it's possible. Justin Kurzel revealed in a Reddit AMA that the original cut was close to 2 hours and 25 minutes. The actual film is an hour and 48 minutes (With credits). I heard from some fans who went to one of the premieres that the film was originally 20-25 minutes longer. Wonder why they cut it down at the last minute? Some might say that an extended cut won't happened because of the film being panned, but that didn't stop films like Kingdom Of Heaven, Sucker Punch, or the Halloween remake from getting director's/extended cuts.

As far as sequel chances go, it's unlikely. Most people hated the film and while it made 240 million worldwide, it cost 120 million to make and that means the film either broke even or lost some money. So I guess we'll never know for sure if that Sofia look alike ghost assassin means that Cal and Sofia are related. Than again, stranger things have happened, so you can't say never. We do know that Adi Shaker is working on an AC anime for Netflix. That could be interesting.

So overall, I really like this film. It has problems, but for me the good outweighs the bad and I don't think it deserves the hate it gets. It's defiantly one of the best video game films ever made and compared to films like Super Mario Brothers, House Of The Dead, and Mortal Kombat Annihilation, it's a masterpiece. I feel like this movie could've been better though if some tweaks were made the the script some scenes were put back in, and we had some more scenes set in the past, but I still enjoy it. 

My score has gone up to a 3.5/5.

What do you think of the film? What do you like about it? What do you hate about it? Please let me know in the comments and thanks so much for reading. :0)

Gravity Falls The Complete Series Coming To Blu Ray This Summer

One of the most beloved shows (Not just cartoons) of the last few years has been Disney's mystery/comedy series Gravity Falls. And it deserves that acclaim. For the first season and the first half of season 2 it was a very well written series with great continuity, likable and funny characters, dark humor, gorgeous animation, fantastic world building, and terrific lead voice performances from Jason Ritter as Dipper, Kristen Schaal as Mabel, and series creator Alex Hirsch as Stan/Soos. Unfortunately the second half of season 2 and it's character development and story felt very rushed to me (Probably because it was originally intended to be a full season 3), but overall it's still a really good show and I highly recommend giving it a try.

After the show ended in 2016, many fans have been begging for a home video release of the entire series and I always believed that they would eventually do it. Well this week I was proven to be 100% right as Shout! Factory and Alex Hirsch confirmed that the series would be available to buy on DVD and Blu Ray on July 24 this year (The same day the new GF comic is released). It will have six discs containing all the episodes of the series and for the special Blu Rays, it will have a seventh disc containing a lot of bonus features (We don't know what they are yet since they are still working on them). 

As a Blu Ray collector and fan of quality western animation this news makes me very happy except for the price. I get that this set will have a lot of discs and the special one will have extra content, but why does the Blu Ray cost $79.99? That price seems absurd for a 2 season show IMO.

I'm also excited to see what the bonus features are (It's great that Alex said there will be a lot of them as well). I personally hope for all the shorts with maybe a couple of new ones, commentary on all the episodes from Alex, concept art, deleted/extended/alternate scenes, the original unaired pilot, and a long (Over an hour) behind the scenes/making of documentary featuring interviews with the cast and crew.

What do you think of this release? Did it surprise you or not? Comment and let me know. And thanks for reading. :0)

First Look At Tom Hardy's Al Capone

Originally, one of my most anticipated movies of the year was Josh Trank's Al Capone film Fonzo starring Bane/Mad Max himself Tom Hardy. I find the story of this mobster to be very interesting and a film about him starring one of the best actors working today. Sounds like a possible Oscar contender. It was supposed to start filming last year for a 2018 release date, but production got delayed and Hardy went on to film the upcoming Venom movie instead. So I was a little concerned that the project might not happen for awhile. Thankfully, Hardy confirmed on his Instagram account that Fonzo will be the next project he works on and later gave us the first look of him as Capone.

Personally, I think he looks looks great. We know this film is about about the final days of Capone's life and him suffering from dementia. This photo shows a very broken man. I know it's just a picture, but it does give me more hype for the film (And it means filming is starting very soon).

One thing that would disappoint me though about the delayed production is that the film may no longer be released in 2018. I wouldn't be surprised if they were able to shoot it and put it out on time as it's a small film (And they're probably hoping this film is an awards contender), but I also wouldn't be surprised if the release date is changed.

I also really hope this film is Josh Trank's big comeback. I loved his direction on Chronicle (A great super villain origin story) and while Fantastic Four ended up being a mess, it wasn't all his fault (A lot of studio interference damaged the film) and the first half was actually okay IMO.

Alongside Hardy, the film has a pretty good cast including Linda Cardellini  and Kyle MacLachan.

What do you think of this pic? Comment and let me know. And thanks for reading. :0)