Ready Player One - Reality is boring

Steven Spielberg is always known for surprising audiences and he's back doing some crazy stuff with his latest movie and I consider myself unlucky to have missed a chance to watch it in theaters. Ready Player One is a movie about gaming and man it was totally out of this world. Spielberg is a legend no doubt but I didn't expect a masterpiece like this even from such a legend who is 71 years old, another person proving that age is just a number. This dude is just so adaptable, he's been making movies from the 70s, but he has consistently made the audience go crazy with Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park the list is just never-ending. In recent times he made Bridge of spies and the post but he has once again managed to capture the youth audience of 2018, especially the gamers here bringing us something so fresh.

THE CGI

I want to talk about this right away because this is probably some of the best CGI you're ever going to see. The movie is a visual treat right from the start and every scene is just going to make you stop in awe and wonder how they even managed to get something like that but a few seconds later, when you're trying to realize how amazing the previous scene was, there's going to be something even better coming your way the next scene. It's ironic that people usually criticize certain CGI scenes of movies complaining that some scenes looked like graphics from video games but this is literally a video game movie with some of the best graphics ever put to the big screen.

There's a scene where they show us king kong, a few dinosaurs, Joker, Harley Quinn, and the iron giant, but I've got to say, this version looks much better than the original versions. The CGI alone makes this a masterpiece but coupled with a great plot, great editing, and great writing, this was just out of the world. 

PLOT

So this is set in the year 2045 where civilization has given up trying to make the world a better place, people are just survivors, settled in small groups in many places. We follow Wade Wyatt, played by Tye Sheridan who lives with his aunt, almost giving us a Peter Parker kind of vibe. The people of 2045 are into this gaming world known as the Oasis, a virtual gaming world where you can create your avatar, and do whatever you want to. It's very similar to video games where you collect coins for your achievements and dying makes you start from scratch.

So the brains behind the Oasis was this guy called Halliday, played by Mark Rylance.  I feel like Halliday's character was inspired by a little bit of Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. Mark dies after creating the Oasis but since he doesn't have a successor, he comes as his avatar Anorak and announces to the people of the Oasis that there are three specific missions which need to be completed after which the player would receive three different keys to unlock the ultimate treasure, the winner would be the next successor of the Oasis.

THE OASIS

So the Oasis is basically an escape for the people from reality where there's basically just enough for the people to make it through the day, almost giving us the feeling of dream sharing from inception where people go to sleep to be woken up. People are far more comfortable being in the Oasis. Basically, all they need to have is a virtual reality headset and a treadmil, they feel every punch, stabbing, and injury but in the end, all they have to do to come back to reality is remove the headset.

So the Oasis is about to be taken over by this typical corporate guy called Nolan Sorrento who is the CEO of the world's largest internet providers, Innovative online industries (IOI) who also turns out to be the main antagonist of the movie. In order to prevent the Oasis from losing its glory, Wyatt and his friends try their best to beat Sorrento at his game.

TYE SHERIDAN - WADE WYATT/PARZIVAL

Tye Sheridan has now played two characters who wear goggles, he was previously playing Scott Summers in X-Men Apocalypse, at this rate he might get to be the next Tom Hardy who is known for wearing masks in his best roles. His avatar, Parzival is one of the millions of avatars in the Oasis who tries to strategically win the three keys. We see him go head-on with Sorrento, attempting to rescue the Oasis. James Halliday is his idol and he knows almost everything about him. His puzzle solving ability gets him very close to the answers. But I couldn't help but get a Charlie and the chocolate factory vibe here, with Halliday at Willy Wonka's place and Wade at Charlie's place and the plot was basically the same.

Wade closely follows Halliday's life choices and wonders if they hold the key to finding the three keys. Of course, Wade can't do this without a group of friends. He meets Aech, Artemis, Sho and Daito in the Oasis who becomes close with Parzival (Wade). It's amazing how close they become without even meeting once in the real world. Together, they try to stop Sorrento from taking over the Oasis. Each of their contributions are valuable and there was something to like about everyone. The chemistry between Artemis and Wade was great and the fact that the makers of the movie decided to use an 11-year-old kid in the team as the best player was perfect because let's face it, most of those online gamers who kick our asses turn out to be just as old.

THE EASTER EGGS

Hidden inside each frame of this movie are plenty of Easter eggs and references to games and movies. Although I was able to catch a few of them I'm sure most of them slipped by me. Seriously I'm not sure even if the most intense movie and game fans were able to spot all of them. Watching this movie made me realize how much of a nerd Spielberg used to be. I'm sure there will be a few of us who will end up watching this multiple times just for the Easter eggs. I even learned a few things about some games which I found was exciting. One such thing I learned was the concept of Easter eggs where we get to see the first ever Easter egg in a game whose name I don't want to reveal. That game has revolutionized the whole world today, creating the concept of Easter eggs which are now used almost everywhere.

This is the godfather of all video game movies and the references here are another reason why you should watch this. It was nice to see characters like Clark Kent, Batman, Harley Quinn, Peter Parker, and Bruce Banner get mentioned a few times some of them were even shown on the big screen, the comic book fan in me couldn't help but rejoice on seeing these characters. I'm sure other comic book fans had their fair share of fun spotting those references. This movie has something for almost everyone in the audience, whether you're a movie buff, a gamer, a comic book fan or someone who just enjoys brilliant visuals.

MARK RYLANCE AND SIMON PEGG - JAMES HALLIDAY AND ODGEN MORROW 

I wanted to talk about two specific characters here, James Halliday played by Mark Ryllance and Odgen Morrow played by Simon Pegg. I've admired both these amazing actors for quite some time now. I love Mark Ryllance's performance in Bridge of Spies, also directed by Spielberg and Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk and he doesn't disappoint here. Rylance does a great job as Halliday, showing off exactly how a genius would behave. There's so much depth to his character and a perfect reason for why he is the boss of the world. The plot of this movie and the idea behind the oasis may all seem a bit complicated but the answers for his Easter eggs were just based on his life experiences.  His hairstyle gave us almost an Albert Einstein vibe. Another thing I loved was his avatar Anorak. Anorak's CGI was epic and it reminded me of Albus Dumbledore. Even after death, Halliday continues to live as Anorak. I absolutely loved James Halliday and I'm sure most of you will agree with me.

I can't be done without talking about Simon Pegg. He's barely here but whenever he does come, he absolutely nails it. He plays Odgen Morrow, Halliday's best friend and I loved how they worked together. Simon Pegg has also given us some memorable performances like Benji from the mission impossible series and Scotty from the Star Trek series. Here he plays Odgen Morrow and he's one of my favourite characters in this movie. His avatar was revealed towards the end and I was just spellbound after getting to know who he was. I hope to see more such great performances from Simon Pegg in the coming years and there was just so much to love about Morrow.

Overall, this movie was amazing, it had everything that you need to make an epic movie. There was a great plot, top notch CGI, drama, brilliant writing, so much for us to learn about the gaming world, plenty of Easter eggs for fans, some really awesome soundtracks by Alan Silvestri who is on a roll now after composing the soundtrack for Infinity war. There's very little not to like here and I am just not able to think of any negatives. Maybe one of the negatives is that it relies heavily on nostalgia and pop culture references, maybe some people won't be able to enjoy this as much as others and it also relies on the audience's focus, if you lose track of one scene, you might not get the next scene, other than that nothing much to complain. I cant wait to watch it again for multiple reasons. This will go down as one of the movies with the best CGI. 2018 is turning out to be great for action lovers, Infinity war, Mission Impossible Fallout, Ready Player One, the list just keeps getting better. I already love Spielberg but the way he managed to keep up with the modern era of gamers and movie fans is just another thing we love about him now, truly a legend.

Verdict

Fan in me: 9.5/10

Critic in me: 9.5/10

T.J. Miller has a role here too, though we don't see his real self, his avatar, I-ROk who is supposed to be a villain turns out to be the comic relief. That's probably how T.J. Miller would be as an avatar. Too little to complain about here, watch it and get ready to be spellbound, Spielberg is the best and this will be another Spielberg classic. His list is just never ending. Looking forward to seeing more such amazing movies from him.

TAG - Don't grow up

Directed by Jeff Tomsic, 'tag' is a comedy movie about a group of friends who get together each year for a month to play a game of 'tag'. The movie has Ed Helms, Get out's Lil Rel Howery, Jon Hamm, Ilsa Fisher, and Jeremy Renner as the main cast. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw and even more so because of the fact that this is actually inspired by true events.

We've all wanted to stay close with our childhood friends forever but very few of us are actually lucky to make that dream a reality no matter how much we want to or how much we try because life happens and after a point of time, we have no choice but to accept reality. That's exactly the case with Hogan, Callahan, Chilli, Sable and Jerry, a group of friends who used to play tag together when they were kids. The movie revolves around a simple quote by George Bernard Shaw that says 'We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing'. 

This particular group of friends decide to honor that quote and they never stopped playing tag and they continued playing through high school, college and through work. Since it would be diabolical to play all the time, they make a pact that they'd play every year during the month of May. While there are plenty of friends who want to meet and catch up doing some kind of activity every year, this particular group decide to use 'tag' as a reason to stay in touch. So this movie takes place during the month of May and a reporter happens to be around and decides to tell their story to the world. 

Jerry is the king of the game because all these years, he has never been tagged even once and manages to maintain this perfect record for almost thirty years. Every year, the other four come up with all sorts of plans but Jerry always manages to slip past them, almost as if he's some kind of superhero, maybe being great at tag is hawkeye's superpower? Now we know what he was up to during Infinity War and Mission Impossible Fallout. I will never get over the fact that he wasn't in both of those spectacular movies. Jerry does this amazing thing while he thinks when he plans to make a fool out of his friends though it looks pretty obvious that it was taken straight out of Sherlock Holmes when he thinks. Renner may be cool, but not cooler than Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. 

Although the plot is amazing, this movie attempts to do great things but fails to hit a few notes, maybe it was the editing, maybe the soundtrack or the writing. At every point of time, I expected to see an amazing scene that would make up for it all but that scene never actually came and in the end, I was a bit disappointed because I was left wanting more. Not sure if its just me or if the movie actually had a problem but then again, as they say, no movie is without a sin. 

Tag is based on a true story, which means there was a group of fully grown individuals who met up every year during March without making any excuses to play tag all month. After watching this, I just felt bad for not trying to do something as crazy as this to make my friendships last longer because I wanted my childhood friends to be with me forever too. This movie taught me that it's perfectly fine to stay crazy and not grow up because of the fear of judgment. Kids should stay kids and nothing should kill the kid in every one of us, let alone judgment because our childhood is invariably the best time of our lives. So maybe next time I stop myself from doing something crazy, I probably won't because these friends have motivated me to cut myself some slack. Maybe we should all take a page from 'tag' and let some of our younger selves take over for a while.

So overall, the movie was fun, taught us a thing or two but at no point did it stop to talk about how difficult life is or just have a normal conversation among the friends and I felt like there was enough room for that. That should have been a bare minimum for any movie to qualify as a friendship movie and maybe that's one of the reasons that it didn't get great reviews. People like being emotionally invested in any movie, they want to feel what the actors are going through but unfortunately, apart from the ending, there wasn't a single moment of comfortable silence, a scene about a traumatic incident or a difficult time they had to go through when they were younger. Sure, there were several trips down memory lane this but none of them were worth remembering. 

The actors did a fine job, it was a treat to see Jeremy Renner shine on so many occasions because his absence in both Infinity War and Mission Impossible Fallout made me want to see what he was up to in the meantime, serving as one of the reasons why I saw this. The presence of the reporter, Rebecca was justified, at several times she was the person we could all relate to but this movie could have been much better than it already was if they had just got in a few more scenes with emotions and realism. There is literally a guy who is broke, divorced and addicted to drugs but never for a moment did he actually express that he's finding it hard to live and the other friends didn't seem to care and that's not something friends let happen. This and a few more complaints but overall, this movie was fun.

VERDICT

7.4/10

Despite its flaws, this isn't a movie I'll forget anytime soon. Definitely worth a few more viewings.

The Nun - Save your money

The nun is directed by Corin Hardy, is supposed to be the story of Valak, the demon from Conjuring 2. When Conjuring 2 came Valak generated a lot of attention and the studio decided to go with a separate movie for the demon. This movie is a result of the success which followed Conjuring 2 and obviously, we had high expectations.

Going into this one I was hoping to see a proper origin movie for the demon Valak but unfortunately, this doesn't have much to do with the origin or backstory of Valak. Valak is supposedly a demon from hell and is now running around in Carta Monastery waiting to unleash evil upon the world. Certain events in the church gained the attention of the Pope and the Vatican folk who are never seen again after that. They then decide to send a Father and a nun who is yet to take her vows. It felt like this was more of an internship for the nun before taking her vows. Joining them is a French Canadian guy who witnessed certain events that happened in the Church.

Taissa Farmiga - Sister Irene

When Taissa Farmiga was cast, I thought she was playing young Lorraine since she's Vera Farmiga's sister and looks like how Vera would have looked a few years back. Sister Irene is sent to investigate the events of the Carta Monastery along with Father Burke. Together they discover that an evil demon is lurking around and is causing catastrophic events in and around the place. She was boring and has very little to do and mostly just runs around the place trying to rescue Father Burke. She has been chosen for this mission because she gets visions which are believed to be a gift from God. Her visions do eventually help out the mission though. I feel like anyone could have been cast as Sister Irene because there wasn't anything special about her character.

Demian Bichir - Father Burke 

Accompanying Sister Irene on this dangerous mission was Father Burke, another boring character who just keeps doing things which would eventually lead to his death and then wait to be rescued by someone. His past haunts him in the form of another demon and he's mostly involved with that more than Valak. It almost gave me a crooked old man vibe feel only this time there's no reason for the other devil to be around except for a few jumpscares because it never helped the story in any way.

Jonas Bloquet - Frenchie

Frenchie is a man who witnessed an event that happened in Carta Monastery but for some reason decides to be with the father and sister for extra help.  He mostly tries to hit on Sister Irene and is somewhat of a comic relief in this otherwise dark movie. Once again this is a role anyone could have played and there wasn't anything different or great about him. 

Bonnie Aarons - Valak

The CGI demon was the reason I wanted to see this. Valak was the best part of Conjuring 2. It was creepy, scary and a genius. The plan of using Bill the crooked old man to lure Ed and Lorraine out of the investigation to get to Janet in conjuring 2 was truly awesome. Unfortunately, we are going to see none of that awesomeness here. Valak is just here to randomly roam around the Church and give us a few jump scares. The demon is trying to find its way back to earth from the gates of hell. It was utterly disappointing to see such an awesome demon not get a compelling storyline. There's very little here about Valak's past and that amazing theme that they used in conjuring 2 was used just once. In the end, I wasn't sure whether 'The nun' meant Valak or Sister Irene.

Overall, the movie was disappointing and failed to live up to the hype. There were scenes where I couldn't actually control my laughter and neither could the audience. Some serious scenes actually turned out to be funny and I'm not sure whether they were meant to be that way. There was very little interaction between the characters and they were boring. Maybe there was too much hype. At least the jump scares could have been better. We can see most of them coming from over a mile. There's a huge pause before every jump scare and there's no surprise element anywhere. The CGI on Valak was good and the sound effects were nice too.

This movie didn't show us anything new, mostly recycled stuff from other horror movies like the crucifix turning upside down, the power of Christ being used to stop the demon and all. I almost fell asleep in a couple of scenes. At least the story could have been a bit better. The editing was fine but the writing was really weak. They should have made Valak smarter. I'm not sure of the general public this movie didn't even scare me. After conjuring too, that post movie effect was there for at least a week, that's clearly not the case here so I guess it has failed to stand as a horror movie and in my opinion, this could have just been rated PG 13.

Another huge drawback here was the continuity issues. If they're making a movie which exists in the same universe as the conjuring, they should have made some sort of a connection between the two. In the end, I expected them to explain how Valak turned up in the Conjuring 2 but they never made any such effort to explain it. The ending felt so sudden and it made me feel like they cut something off, maybe we get to see that in an extended cut? Anyway, even if they do I have no plans on watching this again if anything I'd like to forget this even happened because it takes off all the great things about Valak we saw in Conjuring 2.

VERDICT
FAN IN ME: 5/10
CRITIC IN ME: 4/10

No matter the reception this movie gets, the universe will keep on getting bigger as they have now pushed Annabelle 3, Crooked man and nun 2, hopefully, it gets better. Maybe give James Wan a try for nun 2? Feels like Valak deserves much more than this.