Mission: Impossible -The Final Reckoning (2025)

Let me tell you how old I am. I'm old enough to remember when Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning was titled Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. I loved it, and I didn't even think about the problems that might be lying ahead for those aiming to satisfyingly complete the one grand action epic that could serve as a jewel in the crown of the series. Unfortunately, there were problems. Not only did the film not perform as well as expected, it was stuck with a weak human villain and a ridiculous non-human obstacle to be overcome.

I still had faith though. Of course I did. Tom Cruise has enjoyed taking things to another level in his successful working relationship with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (writing once again with Erik Jendresen for this adventure).

I don't want to spend too much time on the plot. It feels needlessly complex, but it's actually quite simple. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) needs to get the gang back together. That gang now comprises of Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), Grace (Hayley Atwell), Paris (Pom Klementieff), and one or two other familiar faces. The latest mission is the same as it was in the first part of this two-parter, despite the title change and exposition dump at the start of this film. Gabriel (Esai Morales) needs to be apprehended, and the dangerous AI, still stupidly referred to as The Entity, needs to be stopped. Time is running out though, and The Entity will very soon be able to wipe out humanity once it has control of every major nuclear weapon facility.

I'm going to be quite negative about this, but I should clarify now that there are moments here that are fantastic. Two set-pieces make this worth seeing on the big screen. It's just a shame that they're the only real set-pieces in a film that clocks in at a hefty 169 minutes. I would argue that it feels as if a whole hour is spent reminding viewers of highlights from the past movies in the series, giving too much screentime to big names who add nothing worthwhile to the proceedings, and having the title repeated over and over again, as well as a mantra about everything being the sum of numerous choices made throughout an entire life. The second half really delivers though, with the long-awaited submarine sequence and the heavily-advertised aeroplane antics giving us the death-defying Cruise stuntwork that has become a staple of the series.

The biggest problem here is the screenplay. McQuarrie and Jendresen seem to have no handle on the pacing, the tone, or how to weave the exposition and character moments in between fun thrills and great dialogue exchanges. It's odd to think of how well they succeeded with the previous instalment, because this feels like the antithesis of that. I almost lost patience and swore at the screen when one scene played out for the sole purpose of letting characters appear, nod knowingly at others, and then disappear again. 

I suppose Cruise is fine, although he struggles with the constant weight being put on his shoulders (both onscreen and generally, in my view, battling against his advancing years). Atwell and Pegg are given some really good moments, and both do well, while Rhames becomes the strong heart of the group. Klementieff does better with the action than she does with the character development, and Morales remains one of the worst villains that the series has given us, although he has more fun this time around than he did in the last film. Henry Czerny remains fantastic as Kittridge, Shea Whigham is shown to have an intriguing connection to some past events, and Angela Bassett must have been delighted with the journey of her character, Erika Sloane, since first appearing in Mission: Impossible - Fallout. Nick Offerman has at least one good moment, which is more than I can say for Hannah Waddingham and Tramell Tillman, but the real shining stars of the supporting cast turn out to be Rolf Saxon and Lucy Tulugarjuk, the former given what I think could be the most intriguing and wonderful journey of any character to have featured in these movies.

Despite not being up there with the best that he's done before, McQuarrie directs the action well enough when it happens, once again helped by cinematographer Fraser Taggart and editor Eddie Hamilton, there's an undeniable appeal to the bombastic and rousing score (that theme tune has served every composer well over the years, I hope everyone involved remembered to give thanks to Lalo Schifrin), and everyone works hard (perhaps too hard) to deliver something consistent with the continuity and aesthetic of the IMF world as we've come to know it over the years.

If you have enjoyed these movies over the years then you should head out to see this on the big screen. Everyone involved deserves what should be seen as a celebratory, if a bit self-indulgent, swansong for these movies, or these movies being fully planned around Cruise anyway. And viewers are equally deserving of having one more opportunity to enjoy spending time with these characters, and being able to bid them a fond farewell. 

It's just a shame that it wasn't better. The first half hour or so feels like a clunky straight-to-streaming movie, the excessive callbacks and winks feel like McQuarrie and co. were scared into delivering something intent on keeping fans happy a la Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, and a lot of viewers might grow impatient as they wait for what could have been called A Hunt For Red October. When that is happening onscreen though, it's tense and awesome and enough to make you temporarily forget how often you were just wondering whether or not this could take the lowest position in any ranked list of the M:I movies.

6/10

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Guest House Paradiso (1999)

AKA We All Know That It's Really Bottom: The Movie.

Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson star as Richard and Eddie, a couple of absolutely deranged individuals who are somehow running what is clearly the worst hotel in the UK. Richard is rude to many of the guests, although always has time for the long-term resident Mrs. Foxfur (Fenella Fielding), but he also just wants plenty of spare time to perv on any females that he hopes to see naked. His heart soars when the hotel is visited by Gina Carbonara (Hélène Mahieu), a gorgeous woman who is wanting to stay hidden away from her callous and abusive husband (Gino Bolognese, played by Vincent Cassel).

I was really disappointed when I first watched Guest House Paradiso. I somehow thought that Edmondson and Mayall would find a way to translate their characters into something that would retain the essence of their comedy while also expanding the size of their onscreen world. Although there are some exterior shots here, Guest House Paradiso largely takes place in the titular hotel. There's a bigger supporting cast, and some impressive practical effects, but the film-makers are more interested in just spending some more time putting our leads through the wringer than in seizing the opportunity to be a bit more cinematic in between people being on the receiving end of some major testicle trauma.

Perhaps that was always to be expected. Edmondson stepped into the director's chair, working from a screenplay co-written by the two leads, and it's understandable that they would want to keep things quite simple and within their comfort zone, especially as this was all being done after the quad bike accident that very nearly killed Mayall, leading to him being hospitalised for quite some time.

Anyway, revisiting the film all these years later, after buying a new physical media release of it, ended up being a very good idea. I still have problems with the film, it's not exactly a misunderstood classic, but it's actually a lot better than I remembered. That's partly to do with a cast full of now-familiar faces who were relative unknowns to me back in the late 1990s, it's partly to do with not having anything around nowadays that has that particular brand of Mayall-Edmondson comedic violence, and it's partly to do with me now appreciating a few more of the gags. And the set-piece that has Mayall running around the hotel in a red and spiky rubber set of underwear is impossible to watch without at least chuckling every time the situation gets worse for him.

While both Mayall and Edmondson can play these characters in their sleep, their commitment to the lunacy is always admirable. I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face while acting opposite them, but both Mahieu and Cassel manage, and both gain brownie points for wholly getting into the spirit of the thing. Cassel is particularly enjoyable as he commits to playing someone so repugnant and awful that both Rich and Eddie seem like a better companion. Which is really saying something. Fielding is delightful, and it's fun to see Bill Nighy, Kate Ashfield, and Simon Pegg cast together in a pre-Shaun feature (although they don't all share the screen at any one time). Lisa Palfrey also suffers some indignities for the sake of the comedy, and Steven O'Donnell is a very weary, angry, and drunken chef.

There's still something that holds this back though, something that stops it from being on a par with the TV show it stems from. I couldn't put my finger on it years ago, but now I know what the problem is. It's all too well-realised. The dirt, the body fluids, the stains . . . they're never as funny when you can almost smell them through the screen. It's a similar problem with the violence. Watching Mayall and Edmondson pretend to hurt one another is all well and good, and still works here, but there are some practical gags (one relating to eye damage and one that puts a fishing hook through the nipple of a sleeping victim) that lose some of the humour because of the painful detail shown. And don't get me started on the excessive amount of vomit filling up the screen during the third act.

You might never want to check in to the Guest House Paradiso, but you should definitely check it out.* It's gross, funny, and gross. But also funny. But very gross.

*IF you're a fan of Mayall and Edmondson.

7/10

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

I couldn't resist. The usual "Prime Time" blog post will appear tomorrow, apologies to anyone who likes me keeping to a more rigid schedule.

Here we are then. Is it the beginning of the end for the Mission: Impossible movie series? It certainly feels that way. We all know that Tom Cruise can only keep risking his life for our entertainment for so long. We also know that each time the stakes are raised can make it harder to find ways for the next instalment to top the previous one. This certainly feels like it could be a great mission to go out on, and there are some interesting parallels between this film and the De Palma blockbuster that started it all.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise, like you need me to tell you that) has to go rogue once again, this time on a mission to collect two parts of a special key. Nobody knows quite what the key unlocks, or where it needs to be used, but it's all connected to a world-threatening AI enemy, referred to through most of the movie as "The Entity". Hunt enlists the help of his old friends, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), as well as reconnecting with the tricksy Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). There are many others after the key, although some know more about it than others, including a slippery thief named Grace (Hayley Atwell), a deadly figure from Hunt's past (played by Esai Morales), and a few other key players (no pun intended).

Although this movie series has been on great/top form for some time now, and you could easily argue that not one instalment is a complete miss, I did go into this feeling one small pang of regret. I felt the importance of the marriage of the films with their respective directors had disappeared, especially when you consider how much De Palma and John Woo stamped their style on the first two films, for better or worse, but maybe I am completely wrong. It’s perhaps the case that other directors are still very much doing their own thing, but their own thing happens to be presenting what they want to see in these movies. Director Christopher McQuarrie has certainly done as much to elevate the films, and maintain them as essential cinema viewings, as his star, and this film exudes a confidence gained from previous success. There’s no big song to use/promote, there’s no big stunt during the prologue (although it’s still a fantastic, extended, opening act), no teasing for an extended cinematic universe, and there aren’t really any surprises. You have seen what you’re getting in the trailer and marketing, to a degree, and McQuarrie, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Erik Jendresen, knows that he has something good enough to satisfy everyone who buys a ticket. And the big stunt that has been promoted so heavily in the run up to this release? It’s a highlight that the film builds to as the third act builds, with everyone involved seeming to relish the moment, nodding to the viewers and saying “we know you came here for this . . . here it is, and it’s something special”. And you know what . . . it IS something special. Because almost any other film would have executed that stunt in any number of different ways. But this is Tom Cruise, enabled by McQuarrie, in a bloody Mission: Impossible film.

If you enjoyed this cast in previous adventures then you will enjoy them here. They maintain great chemistry with one another, they each bring something to the table, and viewers should care about whether they live or die. Other familiar faces returning are Vanessa Kirby (still entertainingly flirty and dangerous as “The White Widow”) and Henry Czerny as Kittridge, a man who seems to be in the habit of upsetting Ethan Hunt. Atwell is the standout from the newcomers, always trying to stay one step ahead of Hunt and co. while being unaware of the full picture forming around her, and also being unaware of just how much danger she is in. Morales is fine, although hampered by the contrivance needed to make him feel like a physical embodiment of the AI threat, and there are very entertaining performances from Shea Wigham (an agent who quickly becomes exasperated while trying to capture Hunt), Greg Tarzan David (working with Wigham’s character), and Pom Klementieff (a skilled and determined assassin). Eagle-eyed viewers will also spot the likes of Rob Delaney, Mark Gatiss, Indira Varma, and Cary Elwes, although you don’t need to be too eagle-eyes to spot Elwes, as he has a bit more screentime than the others, portraying the Director of  National Intelligence.

McQuarrie may not be doing his best writing work here, but he throws enough exposition around during the earlier scenes to set everything up for a film that can then rush headlong from one impressive set-piece to the next. The 163-minute runtime doesn’t ever start to feel tiring, thanks to the pre-credits sequence and that jaw-droppingly fantastic finale, coming along after numerous gunfights, a brilliantly inventive car chase, a couple of big brawls, and a sequence set in Venice that underlines just how slim the chances of success are (“well, this is not mission difficult”).

I wouldn’t rush to call this the best of the series, that’s a high bar indeed, but it certainly comes close. It’s so good that it has me thinking I was too harsh when I reviewed the last instalment, because this is easily on a par with that one and I find myself more inclined to overlook the minor issues in favour of the sheer thrill of the energy and spectacle of it all. Oh, and I'll eat my hat if I don't make numerous The Ethan Hunt For Red October gags when the second part is released.

9/10

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The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader (2010)

I had to look up some figures for the Narnia movies before I began writing this review. According to Box Office Mojo, the first film had a production budget of $180M and made a shade over $745M worldwide. Not bad. The second film had a production budget of $225M and made just under $420M worldwide. And this film had a production budget of $155M, bringing in a worldwide take of just over $415M. How the hell the Prince Caspian movie ended up costing $225M is beyond me, but it seems clear that the series was scuppered at that point. Which is a bit of a shame. Because while The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader ended up making the least at the box office, it's a contender for the best of the three films, taking two main characters and throwing them almost immediately into a wild adventure that involves dark magic, a hunt for special items that can be used to stop an evil force, a dragon, and much more.

Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund Pevensie (Skandar Keynes) are miserable, staying at the home of relatives, including a most horrid cousin, Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter). It doesn't take them long, however, to get back to Narnia, this time through a painting of a sailing ship. And the astonished Eustace ends up there with them, meeting Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) and his crew, and soon seeing sights that convince him he must be hallucinating.

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I liked this film more than the previous two Narnia adventures. There are still some problems. None of these films work as well as they could, but this one comes the closest, and that is despite an adventure that focuses on the two youngest, and previously most annoying, members of the Pevensie family.

Henley and Keynes both do better here than they have done previously, obviously improving slightly with each movie in the series, due to the script helping them out and the fact that they have grown up a bit. Barnes is still absolute fine as the courageous and good-hearted Prince Caspian, and Gary Sweet does pretty well as his right hand man. There's no Eddie Izzard returning to voice Reepicheep so we get Simon Pegg instead. He's fine, despite the fact that his vocal performance feels like a slight step down from Izzard's fun turn. But it's Poulter who steals a handful of scenes, even when he's being an absolutely slappable pain in the backside for the first third of the film. He's entertaining to dislike, and then gradually becomes easier to like as the story allows him to be changed by everything he experiences.

It's Michael Apted sliding into the director's chair this time, working from the script by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and Michael Petroni (the other newcomer), and he does a nice job of following on from the previous films, in terms of the look and feel of the thing, while taking viewers in a slightly different direction. There are times when this feels more like a Pirates Of The Caribbean movie (and I know not everyone will view that as an improvement), thanks to the menagerie of creatures, the action sequences, and the nautical nature of it all, and times when, just occasionally, it feels like a film that could have been just as much fun with a lower budget and some lovely stop-motion work in place of the CGI, in the vein of an old Harryhausen flick.

It's a shame that this is where the series ended, considering the fact that there were other adventures fans of the books may have wanted to see, but it's also not a bad thing that it finished on a such a relative high note.

And, as a recurring way to end these Narnia-focused reviews, can we all just agree that Aslan is a Superlion who could always help everyone a lot sooner than he does? Bloody poser, just waiting for his big moment in the finale to save the day and then pretend it was a close call.*

*I did warn you that I would also end this Narnia review with this statement.

7/10

You can buy the boxset here.
Americans can get the movies here.

Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

Not content with upsetting people who took a dislike to his output in the music industry, Crispian Mills (son of Hayley, frontman for Kula Shaker, who I actually really enjoyed) seems intent nowadays to equally upset people who dislike his output in the movie industry. This is his second feature, both with Simon Pegg in a lead role, and I can only say that, judging from this one alone, Mills is a much better musician than he is a director.

The plot of Slaughterhouse Rulez is quite a simple one. You have a new boy (Don Wallace, played by Finn Cole) trying to fit in at a posh public school. He finds a friend (Willoughby Blake, played by Asa Butterfield), finds a girl that he immediately starts pining for (Clemsie Lawrence, played by Hermione Corfield), and finds himself incurring the wrath of a bully (Clegg, played by Tom Rhys Harries). And this all coincides with trouble at a nearby fracking site that has unleashed some dangerous beasties.

The cast don't do a bad job. Everyone mentioned fits nicely in their roles, even if those roles are quite thin stereotypes to help this feel very much like an old comic tale brought to life onscreen. As well as those mentioned, you get Simon Pegg as a teacher, Nick Frost as an environmental activist, Michael Sheen as the headmaster, and very small roles for Jo Hartley and Margot Robbie, as well as a number of lesser-known actors doing their bit to add to the fun.

Look, you can't see a film like Slaughterhouse Rulez and call it one of the worst things ever made, you just can't. It has a degree of technical competency that is achievable for people who can get a decent budget in place (no blockbuster money but certainly not at the lowest end of the indie scale), it has fleeting moments that hint at how much better it could have been, and it has a delightful performance from Sheen.

You can, however, see this and be massively disappointed. In much the same way that 101 different British crime caper movies came along after the success of Guy Ritchie, a horde of British movies have all tried to capitalise on the success of Edgar Wright, some of them doing so by blending horror elements with some particularly British comedy stylings, and some doing so by trying to get Simon Pegg and/or Nick Frost involved. This does both, allowing it to be doubly disappointing.

Mills must take most of the blame. He directed. And, with Henry Fitzherbert, he also co-wrote the script. The pacing is off, without any decent set-pieces to make things move along quicker, the supporting characters aren't interesting or well-developed enough to make the time spent with them worthwhile, and, worst of all, very few of the jokes land. The monster moments work, but are too infrequent, which leaves the whole thing feeling like a wasted opportunity, especially considering the cast assembled.

4/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the same disc here.
Or you can just click on the links and buy whatever you like.

Prime Time: Terminal (2018)

When watching Terminal, there were two things that I strongly suspected. First of all, it was written and directed by one person. Second, that person was making their feature directorial debut. But would my suspicions prove to be correct?

Written and directed by Vaughn Stein, making his directorial feature debut, Terminal is a neon-splashed neo-noir that takes a game cast (Margot Robbie, Dexter Fletcher, Max Irons, Simon Pegg, and Mike Myers) and squanders them in a muddle of horrible plotting and horribly overt references to the most famous writings of Lewis Carroll.

Robbie is a mischievous woman names Annie, who works in a diner, but also works in a number of other roles. She encounters a dying man (Bill, played by Pegg) and sets out to help him end his misery. She also encounters a couple of contract criminals (played by Fletcher and Irons), setting out to put them on a job that may end up pitting them against one another. And she's helped by a crippled train station janitor (Mike Myers). The grand finale may try to convince you that more connections abound, and that this is a film plotted with interesting clues and details, but that's not true. You can believe it if you want to, and I won't begrudge anyone trying to find something more substantial within what they've just watched, but it doesn't make it any more true. It also doesn't mean that this is a film without some entertainment value.

There are things to enjoy here, not least of them being the central performance from Robbie, who is as watchable and enjoyable as ever (despite one or two moments in which the accent wavers). Fletcher and Irons aren't on the same level, but Pegg has fun with his scenes, and Myers makes the most of his biggest onscreen role in a long time.

The visuals are also a plus. This film isn't set in a reality. It's set in a dangerous world that feels populated only by unsavoury characters, supporting players who may not realise the tale being woven around them, and a select few vibrant personalities who dominate any scene they're in. There may not be an entire world built before you, and what's there may not feel authentic, but there are a number of wonderful sets, each one resonating with a special sense of cinematic cool. This is homage-by-numbers from almost start to finish, but the films and tropes being homaged are so much better than the main feature that they drag things up a notch.

It's sad that Stein is the biggest failing that the film has. He shows that he's capable when it comes to the visuals and a handful of cinematic tricks and flourishes, but the script is never as clever, nor as witty, as it thinks it is, which is a big problem when there also isn't enough originality or substance to make up for it. This is a bowl of wax fruit, it's appealing enough on the surface but won't feed you, and therefore feels ultimately pointless whenever you need something real.

4/10

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Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

You may have already seen clips of Tom Cruise in action for this latest Mission: Impossible movie. He dives out of a plane. He races through the streets of Paris. He flies a helicopter in a manner not to be found in the "Guide To Being A More Responsible Helicopter Pilot". He does all of that and more. You may have also already heard the glowing praise. A lot of people are calling this the best of the franchise. A lot of people are calling it a new action classic.

Yeah, about that. Let's take off the rose-tinted IMAX glasses and turn things down just a notch.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout is a very good film. There are times when it is great. The stuntwork is often bordering on the insane, making it insanely entertaining, but this isn't the best action movie in years. I'd say that it even falls just below the previous two entries in this series, and I'll go into just why that's the case in a little while.

Cruise is Ethan Hunt once again, of course, and he's flanked by Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) as they try to recover some stolen plutonium cores that they don't want falling in to the hands of The Apostles (who have remained at work despite the loss of their leader, Solomon Lane, played by Sean Harris). Henry Cavill is a CIA agent, August Walker, tasked with keeping a closer eye on Hunt and his team, Rebecca Ferguson returns as the kickass Ilsa Faust, and a few other familiar faces pop up to join the fun.

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (now on his third film with Cruise and his second in this series, the first director to return) knows how to sketch characters, dynamics, and the potentially complex plotting of a good spy caper. It's great to see a number of threads picked up and expertly manipulated. Plot points drop in and reverberate through this movie, and even the events of the past movies, with the impact of a fly that just found itself unexpectedly caught in a spiderweb. And this all happens in between, and sometimes during, those magnificent action set-pieces.

The cast all slip back into their roles with ease. Cruise is, as we all know nowadays, either fearless or completely insane. He won't rest until one of these films allows him to escape a space-set shockwave as he glides down to Earth on the back of a toothy creature a la "Ace" Rimmer from Red Dwarf. Pegg and Rhames are great support, their characters bringing just a small amount of comedy while reinforcing the few bonds that connect IMF with individual lives instead of just faceless masses to be saved. Ferguson is slightly underserved by the script, but does very good work with what she's given. Harris remains a menacing figure, Vanessa Kirby is good fun as a "broker", and Cavill is absolutely brilliant as the sledgehammer who may break our heroes if he thinks things aren't going to plan. You also get some nice work from Alec Baldwin, again, and Angela Bassett. There's even some screentime for Michelle Monaghan.

That covers most of the fun stuff. I could mention how exhilarated I felt watching Cruise ride a motorbike the wrong way around the Arc de Triomphe. I could try to describe the sheer joy I felt while Cruise called Cavill a prick. You get the idea. There are lots and lots of fun moments. And I won't deny that some of the action beats are next-level in their scale and choreography, for a mainstream blockbuster release. The finale is especially adept at jumping from one white-knuckle moment to the next.

The non-fun stuff is also very good. The subtitle here may be Fallout but I suspect that's because Weight just wouldn't sound as good. Believe me, however, when I say that this film is all about weight. The weight of responsibility, the weight of constantly making decisions based on murky and fluid morality, the weight of the practical effects, the weight of emotions. People may remember the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few but this film reminds us all that the choice weighs just as heavily on the person having to make the call, and also that sometimes the end games are one and the same. It also makes an interesting point about the war on terror and how the good intentions can create even more dangers and enemies. I would argue that the two moments in this film that completely sum up Ethan Hunt are a scene in which he apologises to a wounded police officer in French and a scene in which he tells the other team members that he won't let them down, even as everyone realises that they can no longer hear one another. Even with his team, Hunt alone feels the total weight of the job, especially while maintaining a moral code that others may lack.

Where the film falls down slightly, certainly in comparison to the previous missions, is in the scenes which allow it to remind us of the past. McQuarrie ties up loose ends that few people were all that bothered about. He does it well, or as well as he can, but it still feels unnecessary. The same goes for some of the details and callbacks that make the film feel like some grand sendoff rather than just a grand adventure. I'm not going to namecheck them all, and I am not saying that there are lots and lots, but fans of the series will find some moments feeling far too familiar because McQuarrie felt that he needed to include some extra little nods and winks.

The fourth film had amazing set-pieces without a memorable villain, the fifth film had the perfect mix of both. This film sits somewhere between the two. The villains are great, the action is often brilliant, but it's a bit overlong, a bit happy to scamper back and forth to the same well, and sometimes, even for this series, feels a bit too unbelievably coincidental and convenient.

But I'll be just as eager to see the next mission. And I'll be buying this one ASAP.

EDIT: I have changed my mind slightly on this, the bad doesn’t do enough to bother me on repeat viewings, and I think maybe wearing the rose-tinted glasses can be a nice experience sometimes.

9/10

Your mission can be found here.

Ready Player One (2018)

I had a lot of fun when I read the book of Ready Player One (written by Ernest Cline, who also worked on the screenplay to this movie with Zak Penn) but I didn't rate it as a GOOD piece of writing. If asked to describe it by anyone, or if I decided that I should discuss it with other people, I mentioned the style of American Psycho, but instead of lots of brand names and designer labels it was overstuffed with pop culture references, mostly from the 1980s.

When I started to hear about Steven Spielberg directing the movie version of the movie, I had an optimistic view of what we might get. Spielberg knows that world. He gave us a hell of a lot of it. And he has proven, on more than one occasion, that he can take a flawed novel and pare away the worst parts to give us a real cinematic treat.

I bought my ticket, I bought my treats, and I eagerly waited to be transported to a world full of recognisable characters, moments, and cinephile-friendly easter eggs.

Basically, I got what I wanted. Sometimes.

Sadly, the film isn't the improvement on the book that I hoped it would be. It works in some ways (the casting of the main "baddie" being a big plus point, for example) and then falls down in other ways.

The basic plot, for those still unaware, is as follows. Most people spend their days living in a virtual world called the OASIS. You can do anything you want, and also build up kudos and credit that could help you in the real world. The creator of the OASIS left a number of easter eggs in the world, revealing in a video that automatically played to everyone after his death that the person to find three hidden keys would become the owner of the OASIS, which would make them the most envied individual on the planet. Tye Sheridan is Wade, who spends his time in the OASIS as Parzival, and he thinks he has what it takes to win. He also doesn't mind helping a girl that he is quite taken with, Art3mis (AKA Samantha in the real world, played by Olivia Cooke), and his best friend, Aech. But as they start to make progress on their quest, corporate bad guy Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) becomes more determined to put a stop to them, either in the OASIS or by dealing with them outside the relative safety of virtual reality.

Almost every aspect of Ready Player One has both good and bad aspects to it. Sheridan is a disappointingly bland lead, but that's okay when you get more of his scenes featuring Cooke. Mendehlson and T. J. Miller are both very good, but I can't say the same for Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg, which is very unusual for the former. And Lena Waithe, Philip Zhao, and Win Morasaki do fine, but aren't half as memorable as the hordes of CGI cameos worth keeping your eyes peeled for (which I understand is almost the driving force for the whole thing anyway).

The script does well at explaining ideas and plot points, it doesn't do so well at giving the characters any decent dialogue in between explaining ideas and plot points.

The visuals are impressive, as you'd expect, but most scenes are far too busy, either with the ongoing action or the multitude of easter eggs. What I expected to be fun onscreen actually ends up quickly becoming quite tiresome and irritating. I may change my mind when able to view the film at home and rewind certain moments, and it at least improves things structurally compared to the sloppiness of the source material, but this is very much a dual-layered experience. As an actual piece of cinema it's a hot mess, yet as a hot mess it's kind of easy to pick and choose various moments to enjoy.

Even the soundtrack falters. The score by Alan Silvestri isn't very memorable and the pop hits used throughout are just background noise when they could have been lined up with better moments to create some movie magic. Hell, the film starts with Van Halen's "Jump" blasting and then just fades it out as you get the initial info dump. High energy potential is just left to sizzle and dry up.

This should have been a home run for Spielberg. He's been back on excellent form over the past few years, he's comfortable working with all of the new industray toys, and movie nerdiness is in his blood. The fact that it isn't proves how hard it must have been to translate the story to screen. So perhaps we should just be glad that this project fell to him, rather than someone who could have made it so much worse.

6/10

The Blu-ray will be available here.
Americans can pick it up here.