mookie

This film works on only one level: B-film Summer Mindless Popcorn Flick. Walk in with any sort of expectations other than that and you will be disappointed. The film moves at a surprisingly quick pace and the action is paced just right that there aren't many slow spots in the film. The special effects were quite good for the film. The battle in Chicago was a visual effects beast (Pun? Maybe.)

Dwayne Johnson is Dwayne Johnson in the film, he carries the film well and I don't think the movie would have worked without him being in it. Naomie Harris was good also in the film, but not given enough to work with. The real star of the film is Jeffrey Dean Morgan who's cowboy-like Agent Russell is fantastic -- Morgan chews through each scene he's in and he was so much fun to watch that when he wasn't onscreen, I wished that he was. The only person that feels completely out of place in the film is Jake Lacy, who I can see as the comedic relief, but he hams it up so badly that it does not work and becomes quite annoying.

Go into the film without much expectations other than to be entertained via a quick-paced, visual effects laden action film and you'll walk out with a smile on your face. This movie is fun.

For the most part, I liked Ready Player One. The film is entertaining and imaginative, but it never seems to reach the potential that it has. It feels like it squanders some good material in a quest to be a parable about the dangers of virtual reality.

I finished reading the book a few days before the film's release (today) and I have the book's story fresh in my mind to compare with the film.

The film, co-written by the book's author Ernest Cline only has the very basics from the book. There were some deep structural changes made the the film's story and characters some for the better and some for the worse.

The changes to the way the keys were found and used, that was a good change. The book's version was dull and drawn out, the film's version is more dynamic, quicker to the point and in general more exciting -- a good example is the first key, in the book it was a dungeon quest that ends with Parzival playing an arcade game. In the movie, it is a race that is visually stunning. The research and Halliday journal are compressed into a museum of sorts and that helps a lot.

One of the changes that was for the worse was the way the characters met. Having Parzival meet Art3mis so early and having Art3mis be the one that initiates the meeting was a bad choice. The chemistry between the two never really works onscreen and the "love" that they feel for each other feels forced and too quick. Aech, who has a larger part and backstory in the book, is reduced to basically a driver. The Japanese kid who dies in the book lives in the movie, which takes away from the evilness of Sorento. Also, having the kids be together in the real world and working together is a bad change as it takes away from the competition. I can see why Spielberg would want this change to happen -- it follows in the same footsteps as his other films that feature kids as the protagonists.

Speaking of Spielberg, the man has two sides. There is Serious Spielberg (The Post) and there is Fun Spielberg (Ready Player One). Lately, Fun Spielberg hasn't had much fun -- his last few "fun" films being The BFG, The Adventures of Tintin and that Indiana Jones film everyone chooses not to remember. Gone are the days of Jurassic Park or Raiders of the Lost Ark "Fun" Spielberg. It almost seems like Spielberg is trying too hard with Ready Player One to try to recapture the magic of "Fun" Spielberg. For the most part, he does.

The score by Alan Silvestri is perfect for the film as he remixes some of his best themes into the film that has... well, some of the movies that he scored for.

The leads were decent. Olivia Cooke stands out in the film and is most memorable. Ben Mendelson is also memorable with his mix of the sneering Krennic with a little bit of cowardly goofball -- it sounds weird, but it works. T.J. Miller's I-R0k is a character that was not in the book, but added to the movie -- and I really liked this addition. I-R0k was very memorable and hilarious.

The movie banks on nostalgia and shoves quite a bit of it visually in every frame. It will take multiple viewings to catch everything that Spielberg and team put into the film.

I am a huge fan of the inventive yet simple first film. It is a guilty pleasure of a film that includes giant robots and monsters, but has enough development of characters that I have something to latch onto. It also helps that Del Toro's imagination helps build not only some fantastic beasts, but a great world to have the action focus on.

This sequel, while almost stand alone, doesn't have as much in any of those departments. The characters are pretty flat. The relationships between the characters are barely developed (like between Pentecost and Lambert, or Pentecost and Amara). The film lacks any heart or soul to it. Yes, there is lots of action, lots of Jaegers fighting Kaiju, but it almost feels rote. While the fight scenes in the original film are masked in night and rain, the fight scenes in Uprising take place mostly in the bright day light. I figured that would make for something exciting, but the action mostly falls flat. Maybe, it's because there aren't any memorable touches in the fight scenes like the original such as the Newton's Cradle or the funny items falling out of cargo containers used as weapons.

Even with this said, I did enjoy the film for what it is, a film that aims high, but falls quite short of its original. The film is carried by John Boyega whose charisma makes the film very watchable. The casting of newcomer Cailee Spaeney was also great, she has a future ahead of her. I didn't much care for Scott Eastwood who doesn't emote anything other than "stern" or "annoyed".

The story for the film was pretty thin, except for the twist which sets off the big fight in the third act. I actually thought the twist of flipping Newt to be the bad guy was brilliant since Newt is the last guy I would think could be a bad guy.

I do wonder what happened to some of the other characters that survived the original film. What happened to Raleigh Becket? How come he's not with Mako Mori who shows up in this film? How come Herc Hansen is not leading the Shatterdome? And where in the hell is Hannibal Chau? The script doesn't bother to fill us in on these interesting characters from the first film.

The score was taken over by Lorne Balfe and was fairly forgettable until he uses Ramin Djawadi's original Pacific Rim theme in the third act.

This season represents a reboot for this series. The series seems to have gone from bland and boring to crazy and off its rocker. A good thing? Maybe, we'll have to see. This season premiere episode had some decent stuff, but it also had some stuff that was just silly beyond belief.

First, the good stuff, the bland team from last season is gone. I was tired of seeing Mills as the lackey in the team, I wanted to see some semblance of Mills from the movies. Second, they kept Clive Standen and Jennifer Beals, both the best things about the show. The show seems to have upped its action game also and that is a welcomed addition.

Now, the bad stuff. It looks likes the new show runner is going from grounded-in-reality to lets-just-do-it-for-excitement. Because there's no reality in this show. Christina Hart was able to see all the source code for a program that can find anyone anywhere on Earth... with a single Polaroid? Uh huh. A quarter master not only shows up at the right time and the right place, but with a Javelin anti-tank missile? Uh huh. A prison full of prisoners with enough gold teeth to melt for a half-foot long gold pick? Uh huh. Tracking a kidnapped girl by tiny little beads dropped every ten minutes? Uh huh. Like I said, this show is not grounded in reality anymore.

Other things, the green screening at the end of the episode? Wow, that was some terrible Hunt for Red October type green screening. I guess they've had some serious budget cuts for this show's production.

I will give this show a few more episodes, but I am not sure I will stick with it. And since it's stuck in a dead-end Friday night slot, I am not sure that it will last much longer anyways. That's too bad, since Standen and Beals are doing their best here. I still would love NBC to transfer Standen over to The Brave so that he can join that team. Then replace Anne Henche at The Brave with Jennifer Beals.

This show has never been that good, but the first season was marginally entertaining -- because of this, I recorded and then binge-watched it. This season has taken a turn for the worse. This episode encompasses all the things in the show that have made it ready to be removed from my DVR schedule:

1) The character Lyor Boone completely ruins the tone of the show. When there is something serious in the episode, any screen time with Lyor completely squashes that and makes the show feel odd. Is it trying to explore serious issues or is it some comedy? Which is it?
2) The writing has gone down hill. This episode had some truly cringeworthy writing, especially the continued use of the term "SuckerGate" throughout the episode. Ugh.
3) Maggie Q is completely wasted in the show. Her character seems to get side missions (now that they've "eliminated" Patrick Lloyd). I like Maggie Q a lot and she deserves much better than the side missions and some romance with British Clark Kent -- in which there's no onscreen chemistry at all.
4) The overuse of the fix-all-solution: A feel good-speech by Kirkman. It seems that every other episode's problem is solved when Kirkman makes a feel-good speech. It's gotten old.

The show has moved from "so bad, it's good" to just plain "it's so bad".