On the Couch Movie Reviews

[bedsitter23]

Ready Player One - I read the book so I had to watch the film.

Being Spielberg, I had to doubly check it out. The book was great but the plot was clunky at times. Spielberg (or screenwriter Kal Penn) rights a few wrongs there. He also plays it as an action movie which of course is the right choice, but takes out some of the fun of the quest stuff. It is for the best though in that Spielberg can try some Fifth Element style visuals.

My main disagreement is that Halliday is played for laughs. Mark Rylance comes off as a low budget Dennis Hopper or Peter Fonda. I see Halliday needing to be a Jobs or Gates and even if eccentric, not a punchline. Spielberg cleans up some of the characters backstory (which is fine, Cline wasn’t particularly great at that part).

It’s an enjoyable movie but it’s hard to pinpoint while it’s not great. For one, Clines characters are fairly stereotypical. The imagery is great of course. The stacks of trailers seem instantly iconic. Perhaps, the movie like the book tried to accomplish to much. Like The Hunger Games, perhaps it is trying to be all things to all audiences. It feels like an 80s PG movie (language, mild horror and so on) and that feels like a better decision than Disneyfying it, but is it? How did Guardians of the Galaxy feel so fresh using so many of the same tropes and how exactly did it accomplish what this film can’t.

But that’s ok. In the world of $15 tickets and social media, lest we forget “Very Good “ is ok. Not everything needs to be “Great”. Captured the spirit of the book and was a fun ride.

Paddington 2- I have heard good stuff about the Paddington series but never saw the first one. The truth is the line on it is pretty accurate. It’s a rather light and fun family movie. It was just a bit slow for my 5 year old but not by much. A couple of more years and it might hit his sweet spot, though he did generally enjoy it

As an adult, it is easy to appreciate how it was done. It stays breezy but the story, though basic, is enough of a hook to keep the viewer tied in. It doesn’t hurt the actors are top notch (Did anyone notice that this film shares at least two cast members from Gangs of New York?) and so it has more of a classic feel than a disposable one.

It’s funny to me that Paddington 2 is one of, if not the, most loved films on Rotten Tomatoes. In that sense, well, it’s just a film. But that aside, I really quite enjoyed it, and ironically, it does actually stand up with more adult films. It feels more genuine to me than the similar films Disney sells. It certainly shares some of the magic of the best of the Harry Potter movies (with which it shares a producer) but keeps it simple for a memorable family experience.