terry78
My name is Stefan, sweet thang
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2004
- Messages
- 88,379
- Reaction score
- 8,391
- Points
- 203
Nicole Sperling
@nicsperling
If there is any audiences where a film can go down twice with no sound and come back to raves its #SXSW. Good times and get me a copy of that soundtrack. #ReadyPlayerOne
Tasha Robinson
@TashaRobinson
Went into READY PLAYER ONE skeptical as hell. Came out largely as a joyous convert. I have a handful of issues with the structure and characters, but it improves on the book in important ways, the action is riveting, and I really bought the humor. #readyplayerone
Scott Menzel @SXSW
@TheOtherScottM
Ready Player One is a pop culture extravaganza. A truly one of a kind film that combines video games, tv, movies, music, & action figures into one huge crowd pleasing film. Prepare to be wowed & see this on the biggest screen with the best sound system possible. #ReadyPlayerOne
It's a little twisted, at a time in which much of what is soul-sucking in our world was created or enabled by the internet, to cheer for humans who risk their lives to remain in a digital reality. In a film and novel full of nostalgia, perhaps the deepest throwback is to the spirit of those early home-computer adopters many of them trained on Dungeons and Dragons world-building who deeply believed that wondrous things could spring from the primitive programs they were learning to write. If today's digital citizens could step back from their newsfeed troughs and think about a web they'd actually like to be caught in, maybe there's an oasis worth fighting for somewhere out there.
Ready Player One is set in a dilapidated future where fantasy rules because reality looks hellish by comparison. Yet the movie puts you in a different mindset. By the end, youre more than ready to escape from all the escapism.
Ready Player One is one of the more clever excuses to run wild with special effects. Of course, that outcome makes sense from a filmmaker whose entire legacy has been steeped in showmanship. As it cycles through dozens of references to past achievements, Ready Player One amounts to a frenetic attempt at remaking the past 30-odd years of popular culture by one of its greatest architects. Without seeing the movie, its hard to imagine anyone could turn it into a satisfying product; by the end, its clear that only Steven Spielberg can.
Those who come away cheering for Ready Player One will likely have enjoyed the films many references, the storys breakneck speed and playful visual design. Others may want to unplug from the paint-by-number characters and shallow plot. The film has much to say about our present-day fixation on nostalgia. So many characters pine to go back to their 80s future, but some of us want to see whats next. Theres no leveling up or cheat codes that can help with that.
At a certain point, though, Ready Player One wants to be appreciated as a film as well as a movie, no matter what Spielberg says. And thats where it begins to falter. Real-world deaths play out in a matter of seconds, a budding romance is told instead of shown, and the movie/film adopts a half-assed message about the inherent dangers of VR; of how you cant just ignore the problems of reality by getting lost in the OASIS. If properly executed, this could be a meaty central theme thats very much in line with our own obsession with alternate reality and fetishization of pop culture.
Interesting. I'm not too hyped for it at this point, but I'll definitely be checking it out in theaters.
75%
Average Rating: 5.6/10
Reviews Counted: 16
Fresh: 12
Rotten: 4
I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up landing in the 70's. All of Spielberg's recent blockbusters going back the last 10 years or so usually end up in that range while his more serious movies like The Post, Bridge of Spies and Lincoln score much higher among critics. Even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has a 77% on RT, even though the audience score is at 53, which is a better indicator of how it was really received.
Anyway, at the very least I'm expecting Ready Player One to be entertaining.
Lol really? I'm not trying to defend Crystal Skull, but the RT audience "score" is notoriously unreliable and has zero credibility. It directly converts the "want to see the movie" ratings to "liked the movie" ratings, so a great big chunk of any major release is "people who rated the movie before even seeing it". Then there's issue of spam accounts and people giving everything 1/10 stars or 10/10 stars.
Also, films that have 30,000,000+ user ratings always have low scores because of the sheer number of ratings, even classic films. It's a broken system.
Based on?I'm not saying I agree with the audience score. Most of the time I don't. But in that case, it pretty much echoes the reaction to Crystal Skull.
I read a description of the films extended sequence based off [BLACKOUT] Stanley Kubrick's The Shining[/BLACKOUT] As an actual friend of that filmmaker, Spielberg should be ashamed.
Here's a reference for you, nuke this film from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Based on?
I read a description of the films extended sequence based off [BLACKOUT] Stanley Kubrick's The Shining[/BLACKOUT] As an actual friend of that filmmaker, Spielberg should be ashamed.
Here's a reference for you, nuke this film from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
? People are praising that scene and describing how imaginative it is.
You really can't gripe about that stuff considering the entire concept is based on Robot Chicken like references.