Review: Ready Player One (UK Cert 12A)

Ernest Cline's debut novel Ready Player One was released in 2011 and critics were impressed by the , with one reviewer calling it 'the grown-up's Harry Potter'. Unsurprisingly, a film adaptation was commissioned almost as soon as the book was published. Now, it comes to the big screen, under the direction of Steven Spielberg (The Post, Lincoln), with a screenplay by Cline and Zak Penn. 

In 2045, the world has become desolate. To escape these harsh realities, people spend most of their time in the OASIS, a virtual universe where anything is possible. OASIS was created by the brilliant James Donovan Halliday, a 1980s pop culture aficionado. When Halliday died, he released a video announcing a treasure hunt through the OASIS, looking for the three keys that would unlock an Easter Egg which would give the winner Halliday's vast fortune... and total control over the OASIS. 

In the five years since Halliday's death, despite many attempts, nobody has completed the first task- a high-octane road-race- to get the key. That is until a young man called Wade Watts, who lives in Columbus. Ohio, and goes by the online name of Parzifal, works out how to beat the race. The contest is then on to find the other two keys- but Parzifal's victory puts him in the sights of Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a multinational corporation who seek to control OASIS for their own profit. 

First off, I haven't read the book, so I can't tell you how faithful an adaptation this is. But what I can tell you is that I now want to go and read the book- and I really feel I need to see the film again. It's just superb. 

Produced under the Amblin banner (who brought us the 1980s delights of ET, The Goonies, and Back To The Future, amongst others), the film is a loving tribute to geek culture in all its forms. There's been a bit of updating since the book was first published- there's references to 'Twitch streams' and one of the first places you see in the OASIS is a Minecraft world- but there are still references to classic Atari games, Dungeons & Dragons, John Hughes movies, The Iron Giant, anime, and so much more. In a way, it's almost overwhelming how much has been put on the screen; things like the scene in the Distracted Globe nightclub and the climactic end battle feature so many little easter eggs and references that repeated viewing would be needed to get them all. 

In the same kind of way that Avatar blended real world with fantasy, the film does a great job of differentiating between the two. Wade's real world in 'The Stacks'- mobile homes piled high on one another- looks drab and grim and gritty, whilst the OASIS looks bright and sumptuous. The CGI on the avatars looks great, and the worlds created in the OASIS all look amazing- even a note-perfect version of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining! 

So, visually, it's stunning- no surprise there. But Ready Player One also has substance beneath the sheen. There's some pointed social commentary on the use of technology to escape reality, the nefarious plans of corporations to monetise and control people, how the real world compares to the fantasy world created online, even down to making the simple point that you may know people online but how much do you really know them? There's a lot to think about. Plus there's also the quest narrative (something I particularly enjoy) to get invested in. 

Performances are strong across the board with Tye Sheridan (Cyclops in X-Men: Apocalypse) taking the lead role of Wade/Parzifal. He's great as the hero, a young man whose real world experiences are dreadful and seeks refuge in the OASIS, only to find the actions of the online world having real-world consequences. He's a geeky obsessive but one with social skills, and you really get behind him as he progresses through the egg hunt. Olivia Cooke plays Art3mis, another participant in the egg hunt whom Parzifal has an attraction to. Their relationship blossoms in both the real world and in the OASIS. Lena Waithe is superb as Aech, Parzifal's friend in the OASIS, who turns out to be someone very different in the real world. Win Morisaki and Philip Zhao complete the motley crew known as the Hi-5 as players Daito and Shoto respectively, with Zhao getting a lot of the laughs when his real-world identity is revealed. 

Ben Mendelsohn is great as Nolan Sorrento, the weaselly yet powerful head of operations for IOI. His attempts to manipulate the game in order for IOI to win are particularly villainous, which really gives you something to root against. Even when he tries to pass himself off as not just a corporate suit, he's just so supercilious and unpleasant that you can't wait to see him fall. He's provided with great support by Hannah John-Kamen as F'Nale, a handler for IOI who does the dirty work in the real world, and by T.J. Miller who voices an OASIS character called i-R0k, who does his dirty work in the virtual world. Miller riffs on his Deadpool character as the snarky support and also gets a few laughs.  

One other performance to note is that of Simon Pegg, who appears as Halliday's former business partner Ogden Morrow. Pegg makes the most of limited screen time to provide some heart to the situation. He also makes an uncredited cameo elsewhere in the film which is particularly nice when it's revealed. Finally, Mark Rylance reunites with Spielberg after Bridge Of Spies and The BFG to play Halliday. Halliday is a shuffling eccentric who finds the real world just that little bit too difficult to navigate, hence why he built the OASIS. It's a lovely supporting performance by Rylance, who also provides the voice of Halliday's avatar in the OASIS- a wizard with the rather lovely name of Anorak.

I cannot recommend Ready Player One highly enough. Chockfull of geeky references to keep even the most avid trivia buff busy, it's also got a lot of heart, a lot of adventure and more than enough going on to make the running time of 140 minutes disappear in the blink of an eye. Superb stuff.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Tez

Ready Player One is on general release from 29th March 2018.

Review: The Limehouse Golem (UK Cert 15)

London, 1880. A series of gruesome murders have taken place, by a serial killer who has been nicknamed 'The Limehouse Golem'. Inspector John Kilbride has been newly assigned to the Golem case when he uncovers a potential link to a current trial: the music-hall star Elizabeth Cree stands accused of poisoning her husband John; John Cree was one of four main suspects in the Golem case. With time running out before the jury make their decision, can Kilbride uncover the identity of the killer- and possibly save Elizabeth's life?  

It's a gritty, grimy, Grand Guignol tale full of direction, misdirection, and more than a few twists, ably directed by Juan Carlos Medina (Painless) and starring Bill Nighy as Kilbride and Olivia Cooke as Elizabeth Cree.

Nighy gives a wonderfully stoic, measured performance as Kilbride. A good detective who would have gone further but for rumours that he 'wasn't the marrying kind', he feels like he's being offered as a sacrificial lamb when assigned the Golem case. Yet, through his doggedness and veracity, he follows the leads wherever they go. Interestingly (and quite refreshingly), there's no real suggestion of any romantic feeling between Kilbride and Elizabeth; he simply wants to save her from the hangman's noose if it's revealed her husband was the infamous murderer and she acted to stop the Golem. The role of Kilbride was initially meant for the late Alan Rickman but Nighy's performance is superb and one of his strongest, in my opinion. 

Olivia Cooke is similarly strong as Elizabeth. A young woman, abused and mistreated, trying to make something of herself and her life, falling in with the music-hall crowd then falling in love with a man who wanted to save her. It would be easy for Elizabeth to be played as a martyr or a fallen woman but there's something simultaneously fragile yet steely in Cooke's performance. It's an impressive performance and, as the film progresses and Kilbride's interviews with Elizabeth continue, there's more and more layers revealed to the character. 

The rest of the cast are pretty solid too, with a lovely louche turn by Douglas Booth, seeming to channel Russell Brand as cross-dressing music-hall star Dan Leno whose care for Elizabeth is evident. But did his care for her drive him to do something dreadful? Leno is also one of the other Golem suspects, and the film makes an interesting choice by presenting each of the suspects in turn in situ as the killer as Kilbride reads the Golem's diary. Daniel Mays gives solid support as Kilbride's faithful Sergeant, George Flood, who shares an unexpectedly tender yet understated momen with his superior which is a real highlight of the film. Eddie Marsan plays 'Uncle', the music-hall manager, with a combination of avuncular care and iron fist... but even he has a secret or two.

Sam Reid's turn as the potentially murderous John Cree is an interesting one; Reid exudes an air of menace without being stereotypically evil, so you definitely get the impression that you wouldn't want to cross him. In fact, there is the suggestion that Cree may have caused a few deaths before the Golem murders begin. There's also a strong performance by Maria Valverde as Aveline, the Cree's maid but former music-hall performer, whose relationships within the household are complicated, to say the least.  

The film is adapted from Peter Ackroyd's 1994 novel (with the screenplay written by Jane Goldman). Ackroyd uses real people within his book to give an air of verisimilitude, and the film does the same. Leno was a real music-hall performer and the other Golem suspects are German philosopher Karl Marx and English novelist George Gissing, so in one sequence, you get to see the oddly amusing sight of Marx sawing a prostitute's head off (now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write!) Make no mistake, the violence is strong- but because it's so stylized and over-the-top, it becomes less visceral or disturbing. The presentation of the murders feel so theatrical that they're almost difficult to take seriously. 

The script and the production work hard to evoke the genuine feeling of grit and grime in the backstreets of London and the quaintly seedy nature of the music-halls. Costume and production design are top notch and really capture the spirit of those times. 

It's an accomplished piece of film-making and, if you're a fan of detective stories, whodunnits, or courtroom dramas, The Limehouse Golem is one I'd heartily recommend.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Tez