Movie Review: Ready Player One

Title: Ready Player One
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Zak Penn, Ernest Cline
Executive Producers:Adam Somner, Daniel Lupi, Chris DeFaria, Bruce Berman
Producers: Donald De Line, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg, Dan Farah
Release Date: March 29, 2018 (other dates)
More Details: Based off novel by Ernest Cline
*I attended an advance screening
Official Movie Website     

Trailer: 

My Thoughts:

I admit –I wasn’t sure if I was going to like Ready Player One, but I did have high hopes for it. My sister read the book, and every ten seconds she was coming to me with excited revelations. I could only hope I liked it. However, I loved it. If you like retro/classic things, video games, and virtual reality, you’ll love Ready Player One.

One of the first things I noticed was the balance of story and action. The time between fighting and action allowed the story to progress at a nice pace while letting the viewer get to know the characters. The latter I appreciated, because when something happened to a character, I actually cared for once. When a character acted out in a certain way, I understood the motive. Lastly, I don’t usually comment on this, but the CG scenes (especially within the oasis) weren’t too dizzying. Which I enjoyed since a lot of the movie takes place there.

I absolutely adored Ready Player One and I’d definitely recommend watching it.

Thank for reading.

Movie Review: The Dark Tower

Title: The Dark Tower
Directed by: Nikolaj Arcel
Produced by: Akiva Goldsman, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Stephen King (Read more on IMDb)
Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomas Jensen, Nikolaj Arcel (Read more on IMDb)
Release Date: August 4, 2017
Official Website

Summary from IMDb:
The last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O’Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black.

My Thoughts

I never read The Dark Tower by Stephan King myself; I only saw it on a shelf in a bookstore. However, the trailer really caught my interest. Although I liked many elements of the film, I am only going to discuss a couple.

The first thing I found out about the movie was that it was only about ninety-five minutes. I was curious, as I am used to sitting through longer movies. However, after seeing the film, I feel like this was the perfect length. Any longer, and it would have been a yawn fest. In the allotted time, adventure, plot, and action held my interest as the main characters, Jake and Roland, sought one goal: keep Dark Tower standing and defeated Walter.

The action scenes kept me on the edge of my seat. The pacing of these scenes was fast, often making me wonder how characters were going to get out of the situation. There were also some emotional scenes, making me at times want to cry. One last thing is that it would have been nice to see more background information on the world(s), as I left the theater with some questions.

I would like to elaborate on some other things, but I dislike possibly spoiling anything. Therefore, overall, I really enjoyed The Dark Tower.

I loved it!

Movie Review: War for the Planet of the Apes

Title: War for the Planet of the Apes

Directed by: Matt Reeves

Produced by: Mark Bomback, Peter Chernin (Read more on IMDb)

Screenplay: Mark Bomback, Matt Reeves

Release Date: July 14, 2017

Special Screening

Official Website

Summary from IMDb:

After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind.

My Thoughts

Usually, I go to movies that I'm interested in, but with War For the Planet of the Apes, my mom encouraged me to go.  The only thing I knew was that it was the third movie in the series. Even though I had no intention of seeing it, I'm glad I did.

The story started in the middle of soldiers coming towards a stronghold. My first thought was that this was going to be an all war no story type of movie. Albeit, happily, I was wrong. The plot was able to hold my attention throughout the film, and the dialog wasn't overbearing. One of the things I loved was the visuals. The apes were very realistic in detail, plus The  CGI blended well with both the humans and scenery. There was some violence, but I can always appreciate a film that can do action that doesn’t contain too much gore.

The entire film was a good balance between story, dialog, and action. Overall I enjoyed War for the Planet of the Apes.