You’ll find a lot familiar about the journey in the new sci-fi thriller Underwater, but it’s certain to keep you on the edge of your seat, trigger your claustrophobia, and get most of the beats of the survival thriller genre right. Most of that is thanks to Kristen Stewart, who stars as an engineer named Norah, working in an oil drilling facility seven miles down at the bottom of the ocean. Stewart makes our own recent tour of isolation seem pretty tame, as her world literally explodes due to some deep-sea fracking that causes an earthquake, breaking up the facility and severely minimizing the opportunities to leave for the surface. If that weren’t enough, the earthquake releases some kaiju-inspired beasties. It all allows Stewart to create a character as tough and heroic as Alien’s Ellen Ripley with a modern homage to the original sci-fi survivor.
After its second week in theaters, Ready Player One is still chalking up sold-out screenings nationwide. Whether or not you’re a video game fan, and whether or not you read Ernest Cline’s novel the film is based on, it’s a fun way to spend 2.5 hours. Although his producer credits are hit-and-miss over the past few decades, director Steven Spielberg tends to take on films he loves, and handles them with due care. Same goes for Ready Player One. Along with his Oscar-nominated film The Post, Ready Player One proves there’s no slowing down for the director’s success in making good films. Even if Ready Player One is not as great as the films from the 1980s that it honors (Spielberg’s choice to ignore references from his own films leaves a big, obvious gap throughout scene after scene), it’s a nice story, and a progression of the kind of coming-of-age story the director first created long ago with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Yet the backbone of the film doesn’t flow from the 1980s, but from a 1971 film classic: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, based on Roald Dahl’s 1964 book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In the year 2045, Wade Watts, played by Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse), and a group of people he has only met as their avatars in a giant MMPORG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) called OASIS, embark on a quest to solve the late OASIS founder’s puzzle in three steps, which would reward the winner with control of the OASIS and the hundreds of millions of dollars the company behind it (called IOI) is worth. The big win is the authenticity of relationships between Sheridan and his co-stars, including Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel) as Art3mis (pronounced Artemis), Aech (sounds like the letter “H”) played by Lena Waithe (Master of None), Daito (Win Morisaki), and Sho (Philip Zhao) as they work together on their journey. Cooke’s character comes alive as the high point of the film. The villains are more textbook bad guys, led by Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), with his hulking minion i-R0K (“I rock”) played by T.J. Miller (Deadpool), and a seriously underutilized Hannah John-Kamen as F’Nale. i-R0K carries the bulk of the film’s best comedy lines. Surprisingly the story misses the opportunity to give the viewer enough information to solve the three riddles of the film. Instead we watch the characters move through a great big fictional world only they know about. But the adventure is a good ride. Look for Mark Rylance (Dunkirk) and Simon Pegg (Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Shaun of the Dead) as an interesting odd couple of Gates/Jobs-inspired visionaries.
Get ready for dizzying races and chases with the latest CGI and motion capture special effects–so much so that much of the movie feels like an animated movie. We’ve come a long way from the 1980s version of the subject matter in Disney’s Tron–the first foray into a video game world. But Ready Player One is similar in tone to Tron and another video game movie of the era, The Last Starfighter–all good family films with positive themes. Here that’s the importance of community, leadership, and personal responsibility, and the negative side of new and emerging technologies like drones and having more than merely virtual social relationships.
Online superstore Entertainment Earth has just posted the first line of products for Steven Spielberg’s new throwback, mash-up movie Ready Player One, and it’s filled with plenty fans of the book may want to get their hands on, including a sneak peek at some of the character designs that haven’t yet been featured in the movie trailers. This includes a boxed set of four action figures featuring lead characters Parzival, Art3mis, Aech, and i-R0K, a whole load of Funko POP!s, and some nicely designed, prized key icons from the story.
The Funko POP!s feature several characters: Parzival, Art3mis, Aech, Shoto, i-R0K, Daito, a Sixer, Sorrento, and The Iron Giant. The set of keys includes the sought-after Copper, Jade, and Crystal Keys–featured in the final trailer for the film. Parzival is played by Tye Sheridan (X-Men: Apocalypse) in the film, Art3mis is played by Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel), T.J. Miller (Deadpool) is i-R0K, Lena Waithe (Master of None) is Aech, Win Morisaki (Gokusen: The Movie) is Daito, Asan N’Jie (Murder on the Orient Express), Josh Jefferies (Mowgli), Alphonso Austin (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Annarie Boor (Wonder Woman), Fatah Ghedi (Liar), Maeve Bluebell Wells, and Joel MacCormack (Wolf Hall), all play Sixers, first-time actor Philip Zhao is Shoto, and Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is the villain Sorrento in the film.
You can check out the details and pre-order any of the new toys from Ready Player One now, just click on the images above and below to get larger photos and more information at the Entertainment Earth website. Entertainment Earth ships all figures with a “Mint Condition Guarantee” (so collectors can avoid getting crumbled corners and boxes).
Paul Shipper created the final Drew Struzan-inspired poster for the film (above). Shipper has created several posters in this classic 1980s style. Check out his website here. And, in case you missed it, here is the final trailer for Ready Player One:
20th Century Fox’s second Deadpool film now has a real trailer, or as “real” as Deadpool would tolerate. Deadpool 2, which doesn’t seem to have a catchier subtitle yet, brings back Ryan Reynolds’ merc with a mouth superhero (Green Lantern, RIPD) and his girlfriend Vanessa, played by Morena Baccarin (Firefly, Gotham), with the returning support team of Colossus (Stefan Kapicic), Negasonic Teenage Warrior (Brianna Hildebrand), Weasel (T.J. Miller), Blind Al (Leslie Uggams)–and that taxi driver. The sequel to the #2 highest Rated R box office moneymaker of all time introduces the fan-favorite borg from the comics, Cable, to the Marvel movie realm, and this trailer shows Josh Brolin looks to be the perfect casting choice.
The two new trailers were hijacked by Deadpool, as was the promotional summary for the film, which really says it all:
“After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry’s hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor – finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World’s Best Lover.”
The movie also has a new teaser poster mocking 1983’s Flashdance. The international trailer is an edited version from the U.S. release, with an added glimpse of Colossus. Check out both trailers of the new trailers for Deadpool 2:
What Ant-Man was for Marvel Studios’ Avengers franchise, Deadpool is for 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise, proving that a good story and good delivery can outperform big budget, team-up blockbusters. Ant-Man stepped away from the standard superhero movie tropes to give us a flawed human trying to do right by way of some good tech, and Deadpool went to the next step and took the superhero story that much further away from the norm. As the #1 box office success of any Rated R film, it also proved you cannot predict what will fail and what will succeed.
But all the press that distinguished Deadpool as something completely new and different was really just feeding into the marketing hype. Seemingly collectively shocked by the impending change-up of “the first Rated R superhero movie,” press and critics ignored so much. From an over-the-top action standpoint was Deadpool that far different from RoboCop, The Crow, or V for Vendetta–all also carrying the R rating? And from a crude humor standpoint, is Deadpool any different from the similarly hilarious Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2, or if darkness is your thing Sin City or Watchmen–also Rated R?
The reality is that the success of Deadpool can be found in the melding of all the elements you need for any good superhero movie. If you skipped this one or only watched it in the theater, now is a good time to revisit it on Blu-ray or DVD. You no doubt missed some great elements during your first watch, and the special features that accompany the home release point out plenty that will likely elevate whatever view you already have about this release.
The Blu-ray we reviewed included both the Blu-ray and DVD as well as a digital Ultraviolet code for viewing on your Vudu or Flixster account. Deadpool includes the best behind the scenes coverage of any Blu-ray we’ve reviewed this year in its “From Comics to Screen… to Screen” segment. Who knew how much stunt work was required for all the elaborately choreographed action sequences and how much was actually CGI? Sure, we knew star Ryan Reynolds was in the “Deadpool red” supersuit for part of the film, but his two stuntmen really carried a lot of the film with one stuntman tearing his ACL for one of the less-involved sequences. And like the movie’s in-joke, the two other X-Men that appear may well be lesser characters when compared to the team in X-Men: Apocalypse, yet the fact we get to focus on far fewer means we got to know Colossus that much better. Plus director Tim Miller and costume designer Angus Strathie made sure Negasonic Teenage Warhead wore the classic X-Men yellow supersuit.
