23) Ready Player One (2018)

(3.5 's out of 5)

"I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal." - Groucho Marx

Director
Steven Spielberg

Cast
Tye Sheridan - Wade Watts/Parzival
Olivia Cooke - Samantha Cook/Art3mis
Mark Rylance - James Halliday/Anorak
Ben Mendelsohn - Nolan Sorrento
Lena Waithe - Aech
Win Morisaki - Toshiro Yoshiaki/Daito
Philip Zhao - Sho
Simon Pegg - Ogden Morrow
T.J. Miller - i-R0k

The 2018 sci-fi action movie. "Ready Player One," based on Ernest Cline's novel of the same name and directed by Steven Spielberg, is one long eye-popping pop-culture fest. 

I enjoyed the book very much, and the movie is just as loaded...saturated even...with all things pop culture from the last 50 years. So many characters and properties are crawling throughout this story that it'll take a lot of viewings to catch half of them, especially characters who have a second or less of screen time. 

Otherwise, "Ready Player One" is high energy entertainment. It doesn't waste any time. 

The takes place in the year 2045. All of society has grown immensely despondent, and everyone collectively escapes from reality by immersing themselves in a virtual reality world called the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation). Every participant takes the form of an avatar and conduct themselves in all manners of entertainment, commerce, education, etc. It was created by programmers James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg) both of whom founded the fictional company Gregarious Games. 

Users can choose their own avatar, which are often characters from various movies, television shows, music groups. or video games. They can also purchase or acquire various power-ups or accessories also taken from various properties. So. the OASIS is jammed with just about every pop culture reference you can think of. 

As Halliday has since passed away, his avatar known as Anorak, previously announced to all the world that Gregarious Games and the entire OASIS will be handed over to one single lucky winner of an on-going contest taking place inside the OASIS. All the lucky winner has to do is be the first player to find an Easter egg hidden somewhere in the artificial world. The egg is locked away and can only be obtained with the use of three separate keys that also need to be found. 

To achieve the keys, players need to accomplish three separate challenges which aren't easy to win. 

OASIS avatars Parzival (left) and Art3mis in "Ready Player One."

Any egg hunter looking for these keys are referred to as "gunters." 

One of these gunters happens to be Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the corrupt millionaire CEO of Innovative Online Industries, or IOI for short. 

Sorrento utilizes both IOI employees and indentured servants to work around the clock digging through all of Halliday's interests life events which may serve as clues as to where he hid this egg so IOI can own Gregarious Games and control the OASIS. These workers of his are known within the OASIS as "sixers."

Meanwhile, one random teenager named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) not only immerses himself in the OASIS as frequently as anyone else, he's also a dedicated gunter. 

Inside, he goes by the avatar "Parcival" and is friends with a few other gunters called Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), Aech (Lena Waithe), Daito (Win Morisaki) and Sho (Philip Zhao). 

Wade studies the life and interests of James Halliday closely as records of Halliday's life, interests, writings, likes, dislikes, life events, achievements and failures, and other works and points of interest are all recorded in an archive database. 

After Wade figures out how to win the first challenge - a race that no one has yet won - and becomes the first gunter to win and score the first key, he works tirelessly with Art3mis, whom he has a crush on, and his other friends to find the remaining keys and be the one who scores the egg.

Wade becomes the first played to find the first of the three keys, which grabs the attention of Sorrento. He's willing to do anything to make sure he finds the egg before Wade does. 

It's comical to watch a corporate type wrack his brain and spend hours upon hours trying to figure out rather insignificant things (well, to most people) such as how to maneuver through now obsolete Atari 2600 games such as "Adventure" for clues alongside memorizing the importance of retro junk as it all pertained to one dude, Halliday. And he puts himself up against one teenager who's smarter than he is. It certainly says a lot about greed - corporate greed, which is certainly a plot point of the story. 

The whole thing feels satirical. So much energy, importance, life and death, over a giant virtual reality system. Of course, the prize is immense. It's like a modern day, or futuristic, action packed, geek version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."  

There has to be hundreds of pop culture references dating between the 1970s to the mid-2000s jammed in here. Unless you watch "Ready Player One" which has a run time of 140 minutes, one frame at a time, or you have the attention and eyesight of a falcon, or just have nothing better to do on a Friday night and are desperate to accomplish at least one thing in your life, there's otherwise no way to catch them all. 

The Iron Giant attacks Mechagodzilla in the OASIS.

Most of the ones that are catchable have less than a second of screen time. Nevertheless, the movie depends so much on all the pop culture jampacked into the story that it seems the movie forgot to add some much-needed depth and development to the characters. 

They're too stale. It's not necessarily bad to focus on what Wade and the other characters are trying to accomplish. The movie feels completely full. There's a lot happening at every inch of the story, which alternates between the OASIS, Sorrento, and Wade's activities. Yet, the one thing that's missing is any insight into the characters. There's some insight, but not nearly enough. That's really the only initial problem I have with "Ready Player One." 

There's a fortune at steak, but it's hilarious watching everyone treating the OASIS like an absolute necessity. I'm sure there's some social commentary in that as far as modern society's dependence on technology and its addiction to constant visual gratification. That's on top of the commentary of corporate greed. All these references to other movies and such brings to mind those "member berries" from "South Park." Remember that? Remember? Oh, sure - I remember that!

Anyways, Spielberg knows how to wow an audience with eye-popping visuals and can tell a story that completely immerses the audience's attention. The pacing is great, and the story is entertaining. Weirdly enough, its audience is broad yet specific. Pop culture fanatics, geeks and nerds probably get the most out of this movie. There's enough pop culture and video game culture to feed the movie's intended audience of Gen X'rs, Millennials, and maybe some Gen Z'rs which spans more than 50 years. 

I read the book before the movie's release, and I enjoyed it. I also read the sequel, "Ready Player Two" as well, also by Ernest Cline. It felt slower and not as thrilling as the first book. 

Anyways, I like this movie for two reasons. The first being its dedication to irreplaceable reality (believe it or not), and that reality is where we all need to really need to spend most, if not all of our time. And two - the notion that we need to work for our success no matter what amount of success we achieve. No one's entitled to anything. Halliday makes each player use their brains to find his ultimate Easter egg. The entire experience comes down to its entertainment factor, and it is entertaining! 

22) Village of the Damned (1960)

(5 's out of 5)

"I must think of a brick wall." 

Director
Wolf Rilla

Cast
George Sanders - Gordon Zellaby
Barbara Shelley - Anthea Zellaby
Martin Stephens - David 
Michael Gwynn - Alan Bernard
Laurence Naismith - Dr. Willers
Richard Warner - Mr. Harrington
Jenny Laird - Mrs. Harrington
Sarah Long - Evelyn Harrington
Thomas Heathcote - James Pawle

When it comes to the alien invasion, "they walk among us" kind of sci-fi movies, "Village of the Damned," based on John Wyndham's novel, "The Midwich Cuckoos" nails the sub-genre. I have to say, the title "Village of the Damned" is certainly more ominous than "The Midwich Cuckoos." 

In this movie, the entire population Midwich, a small British town, suddenly pass out. It's not just the people who fall unconscious. All the animals do, too.

Any living thing that crosses a certain perimeter around Midwich will also "wink out" as the characters put it. 

Prof. Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) is on the phone with his brother, Alan Bernard (Michael Gwynn) as when he and his wife Anthea (Barbara Shelley) pass out. 

The military are called in and set up a barrier around the town as Alan goes to check in on his brother, though he's stopped at the military barricade. 

After several hours, the residents and animals begin to awaken. The phenomenon goes unexplained.

A few months go by when the village's next major surprise suddenly occurs. All women of child-bearing age are mysteriously pregnant. 

Of course, as expected, some serious accusations fly around about these poor women. This includes Anthea who's also pregnant to the shock of her husband. 

The local M.D., Dr. Willers (Laurence Naismith), deduces that all the women became pregnant on the same day when everyone fainted. 

Quickly. all speculation of adultery and premarital sex change to something more preternatural as the cause of all this. The unborn children develop at a quicker rate than normal babies still in the womb. 
All the women give birth on the same day to children who all look alike. The cause is definitely something otherworldly.  

As the children grow up at a fast rate, they maintain their similar appearances and also demonstrate their power of psychokinesis by making people bend to their will. They also communicate with each other through their telepathic powers regardless of distance. 

They speak in an adult-like manner. They also communicate with themselves through mental telepathy and always walk in groups.

Gordan and Anthea's son, David (Martin Stephens) seems to be the leader of these children.  

Whatever extra-terrestrial species these children are, Midwich isn't the only town becoming inhabited by them. This occurrence is also happening in other parts of the world. 

Gordon begins teaching these kids, which the kids permit him to do. He uses this time to learn about these weird kids, what their intentions are and where they come from. 

Alan also catches on to what the kids are up to, but they warn him to leave them alone and let them carry out their plan for domination. 

He and the other Midwich residents find themselves at the mercy of these telepathic alien children, and it seems there's little they can do about it. After they show their true colors after causing some residents to do themselves in, Gordon secretly devises a plan to destroy all these children as he's the only person in Midwich to have access to all of them, all at once. The only thing he needs to do is concentrate on the image of a brick wall should the kids start suspecting him of something and try reading his mind if they become suspicious. Of course, Gordon doesn't tell anyone, not even his wife, what his plans are. 

I can't help but notice a parallel between this movie, and Pink Floyd's song, "Another Brick in the Wall." I guess it's the teacher, Gordon, as he's up against the oddball students. And there's David telling Alan to leave them alone so they can work out their plans, and the alien kids being intelligent enough to not need Gordon's education, and the whole thing with the brick wall and the thought control is what brings the song to mind. It's only speculation. 

This movie doesn't play with its audience. It cuts right to the thrill and suspense. The suspense and trepidation are solid and substantial with no excess. 

It has a dominant intellectual tone that certainly doesn't get in the way of the real trepidation of the movie. The unsettling tone, which intensifies naturally, is superb. 
There's nothing in this movie that distracts from the story. It begins at the start of the inexplainable turmoil that causes all living things, people included, in the town of Midwich to pass out.

What makes this movie bold enough to push the bar is the use of children, albeit aliens in disguise, as entities to be destroyed. 

"Village of the Damned" raises itself above shlocky sci-fi B-movies of the era with a sense of intellectualism and science fiction prowess. Even for a movie that's 65-years old, it still is just as nightmarish and menacing as it must have been when audiences first gazed at it in theaters back in 1960. 

George Sanders as Gordon Zellaby in "Village of the Damned."

It has a fantastic cast of British actors who portray their respective characters as realistically as possible when facing such an insane plot as this gives audiences disturbing thoughts about what they would do in a situation like this. There's something about children as antagonists that give stories, especially horror, thriller, or science fiction stories, an edge unlike any other trope or plot device. With David and the other children in "Village of the Damned," they're calm and unsympathetic which adds so much to the building apprehension. 

The villagers grow more and more frightened and unsure, while the children watch emotionless yet threateningly. 

The movie often shoots at the children's eye level, and also uses awkward angles and close-ups of the villagers' faces for that extra sense of uneasiness. Eyes are the gateway to the souls and have power to convey the owner's emotions onto others. This movie utilizes that fact as brilliantly as it can. I've seen this device used in other movies. The 2004 horror movie, "The Grudge" comes to mind, though that movie uses fear as seen through characters eyes much more subtly. 

This movie is pure lightening in a bottle. It's restrained but still manages to be completely unsettling and stirring with an increasing feeling that things are going out of control. Perhaps some effects, primarily the split screen used to create the children's glowing eyes that occurs when they gain mental control over their victims and mentally tell them what to do, haven't aged well. But that's not the movie's fault. It has still made a lasting impression, iconic, on audiences.

The movie spawned a sequel in 1964 called, "Children of the Damned" which didn't get quite the praise and acclaim this first movie did. 

John Carpenter also made his own remake in 1995 with the same title. It stars Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley and Mark Hamill. 

"Village of the Damned" is a solid movie where nothing is wasted. It's a story that encourages the mind to pick it apart and stokes tension in the audience as soon as it begins. The child actors are keen at not smiling or laughing or breaking character. They play their menacing characters, superior to humans, brilliantly. I think that superiority is subtly played out as the children always seem to turn their faces away from the human characters when they're talking. 

The weight of the movie's success is really on them. And they pull it off effortlessly. This movie deserves a place among the top sci-fi invasive alien thriller movies ever made.