Reviews

I can't believe that it has taken me 37 years to write a review for Commando.

I first saw it on VHS when I was about 9 years old (Unsuitable for that age group yes, I know, but my parents were never into the whole "movie ratings" thing).

Anyway, apart from developing a huge crush on Alyssa Milano for the rest of my junior/ high school years because of this film, I also witnessed a masterpiece. Commando is, and I firmly believe this, the best of the classic "action movie star" films.

I am also utterly convinced that this is Arnie's best film, forget T2, forget Predator, forget True Lies, forget Eraser (yeah right, as if Eraser stood a chance!), Commando is where it's at if you want to see the great man at the peak of his Hollywood powers.

So, Arnie and his daughter are living the "quiet life" in the mountains of northern California after Arnie has left his elite military unit and decided to retire. Unfortunately his subordinate from said unit (who Arnie fired for reasons never quite made clear, perhaps crimes against fashion?) has other ideas, and he has hatched a "cunning plan" for revenge and the humiliation of Arnie, and the overthrow of a banana-republic president all at the same time, yes, he has been very busy!

When we meet Arnie, he is carrying a huge log, that he just cut down, with a chainsaw, which is in his other hand, we immediately know this guy is not to be trifled with, and not just because it is Arnie, who we know from previous action films. We are presented here with such awesome masculinity that I am surprised the bad guys didn't just leave him alone and re-think their plans. But then we meet his daughter, and a softer side emerges, the "fun" Arnie who feeds deer from his hand and enjoys ice cream, maybe the bad guys were suckered in by this? I bet they were kicking themselves all the way to Hell for making such a grave error of judgement! Not long passes before she is kidnapped. After this affront by his old colleagues, who now clearly don't like him, we just know that violence will ensue (in fact, some already has).

I won't go into too many specifics here because I don't want to spoilt it for anyone who has not yet seen it, but once the story gets going it is really a "detective" story, you will marvel at how Arnie stalks down his opponents to extract information, at how he pieces the clues together so meticulously to find out where his daughter is being held, all with the help of the wonderful Rae Dawn Chong as Cindy.

When the time comes for the final confrontation, the viewer is ready, and under no pretense that this will be war (and I mean an actual war). It does not disappoint. However there are a few glaring errors in Commando which made me question Arnie's "Special forces" training, I will illustrate below (spoilers involved).

1: When Arnie sends Cindy into the mall bar to talk to Sully and she sends the cop outside to arrest Arnie he is standing next to a pillar. When the cop looks at him he basically pulls his head back and leaves his entire 6ft 5 hugely muscled frame still fully visible to the cop, not very Special Forces.

2: When Arnie rows in the inflatable dingy out to the final confrontation on the island, he does so in just his underpants. What if the guys were waiting for him on the beach? Again, not very Special Forces, and rather embarrassing!

3: When Arnie arrives at the final confrontation, he places explosives and totally destroys four buildings. Not once did he check that Jenny may actually be in one of them? He could have blown his own daughter to smithereens, not very Special Forces.

Even though these errors are unforgivable, Commando still stands head and shoulders above all other 80's action flicks. Simply because it is just so much fun to watch, Arnie is at the top of his game, the body count is in the 100's (literally), one-liners are aplenty and everything just works.

Lightning in a bottle my friends, lightning in a bottle.

Watch it, and tell me you didn't get goosebumps at the end when "We fight for Love" by The Power Station kicks in!

I was genuinely looking forward to this, unlike many people, I was interested to see what Robert Pattinson did with the role, and where this story would take us.

I left the Cinema with very mixed feelings.

The overall tone, mood, cinematography and score of this film are excellent, there is much inspiration pulled from previous films such as Se7en, Zodiac, Blade Runner, Taxi Driver etc. Some of the cinematography is also reminiscent of films from the 1970's, very gritty and grainy with soft focus, take the subway station scene near the beginning of the film for instance). The Gotham presented here is a real dystopia, much more so than in previous film outings. It pushes up to the borderline of "too far" but never quite crosses it, you can just about understand why people still live there when they don't have much other choice, but only just.

Pattinson was a very good Batman (although not so good as Bruce Wayne) quite reserved and not too flashy with the gadgets, this made for a good change of character compared to what we are used to, I also liked the way he works the actual crime scenes with the Police, this gave a very refreshing and different perspective. You also get a very good sense of the fact that the criminals really fear the Batman. The general public are preyed on by the criminals, but the criminals are also afraid to step into the shadows and back alleys of Gotham because they are preyed on by the Batman, which is a nice touch.

The Riddler is also a rather good villain in the vain of the Zodiac as previously mentioned, even though his "master plan" really loses steam and becomes a little muddled towards the end.

There are some issues with this film, and I will touch on them here.

For starters, and the main issue for me, it is just far too long. In all honesty, a full hour could be cut from this film and it would actually be better for it.

Catwoman could be completely removed and the film would not suffer at all, in fact, again, it would be better without the character and her plot-line. Also the useless "romance" plot which has no chemistry and really goes nowhere, only really exists to extend the running time.

Lt. Gordon (aka Basil Exposition) is useless, how he ever ascended to his eventual role in Gotham is quite beyond me. He basically serves to provide an oratory narrative for the audience about what is going on. Every time they find a clue he just stands there and says "what does that mean?" and Batman gives him the answer.

The plot also moves around too much and tries to cover too many characters and too many different arcs (this may be the cause of the running time).

To sum up: Whilst it has succeeded in some areas, it has failed miserably in others, and this spoiled my enjoyment of what could have been an extremely well crafted two hour (two and a half at the very maximum) film rather than three hours with much unnecessary fat.

Unfortunately most films are heading this way nowadays: Bond, Fast and Furious etc they are all 2hrs 45mins plus, and they just are not the types of film to warrant such a running time, Batman is in the same group.

With The Batman, if they cut a couple of characters, strengthened a couple of other characters, reduced the running time and tightened the script up, it would have been a real winner. Unfortunately it is rather bloated.

This is a difficult review for me to write.

First and foremost I am a huge Steven Spielberg fan. I firmly believe he is one of the finest film makers the world has ever seen. Right up there with Kubrick, Hitchcock, Lean, Kurosawa, Lynch and the other great pioneers of cinema.

E.T. was the first film I ever saw in a Cinema, and as a 6 year old it left a huge impression on me. I have followed Spielberg's career and films ever since, I have read many books about him, watched interviews, documentaries, and all the extras on all his films. I almost feel like I know him personally. He is to me, like Halliday is to Wade Watts, someone to be looked at in reverence and awe. His films shaped so much of my childhood, and I will always be grateful for his contributions to popular culture. So many of the cultural touchstones we enjoy and take for granted nowadays would probably not exist without him. So, with a heavy heart, we come to Ready Player One.

I was extremely excited to learn that Spielberg was starting production on a film centred around a Virtual Reality universe that made huge references to 80's popular culture. When I first heard about it, I decided to pick up a copy of the book (which I had never heard of). Having read the book I enjoyed it, but did not think it was amazing, just quite good. The film, however, I felt had the potential to be something spectacular. I thought the collaboration of Spielberg and Cline would take the book, and with a little re-writing, a tweak here and there, bring it to the big screen in awesome fashion.

I was wrong.

Perhaps it was the fact that he was a little "starstruck" by working with Spielberg, but I cannot believe how much Ernest Cline has allowed his material to be torn to shreds and thrown in the trash can. Worse, actually, that he co-wrote the script, so he must have excised a fair chunk of it himself. I would genuinely say that a large proportion of the book is not present in the film, the setting, characters, and a handful of references and scenes are all you get. I would say 75% of the book is gone. I understand fully that books need to be changed and adapted to be made into a film, but something went massively wrong with Ready Player One.

I simply don't understand how the team behind this production (including Cline himself) could consciously allow this hatchet-job to happen. I am by no means an Ernest Cline fan-boy, but there were so many scenes in the book that would have translated brilliantly into the film (and not even ones that required licensing deals) and these great scenes were discarded. I won't spoil it by describing what the scenes were, but some of them would have given us more sympathy with Wade, instead they were glossed over and we don't really see his plight of having almost no money, no prospects, and living pretty much hand-to-mouth in a dystopian society. He just comes across as a surly teenager, which in the book, he is not. In the book he is a likeable guy who is struggling along in a life that has dealt him a poor hand.

Two of the challenges for the keys were changed completely, and this is to the detriment of the film. The original challenges should have been kept (or kept and changed slightly if licensing was an issue) and the ones created in the film (whilst, admittedly, being spectacular to watch) should have been side-line challenges that Wade takes part in and not the key challenges themselves. Many of the 80's music and videogame references are simply not there, perhaps due to aforementioned licensing issues? But for a film that sold itself on a retro 80's pop-culture vibe, the 80's nostalgia feeling I had during it was surprisingly low, I think that was mainly down to the music and there not being enough of it or having the wrong music playing in the wrong scenes. For example, Van Halen's "Jump" is totally wasted in a scene where Wade is just making his way around the Stacks. The music was put to far better use in the trailers (which, incidentally, were better than the film itself).

Much of who does what, and how things pan out in the story has also been changed around drastically, basically to give the actors something (or a bit more) to do. Art3mis is brought into the real-life part of the story far too early in an attempt to give the story some emotional grounding, unfortunately their relationship in the Oasis actually works better and is more believable. The villain Sorrento remains pretty much as he does in the book, but at the end of the film appears to have some kind of a change of heart that made me feel nauseous.

Even after my rant, there is some good stuff to be had here. The visuals are absolutely incredible, there are some references which catch you by surprise and are very welcome and there are some genuinely thrilling and funny scenes. In particular, the back-story of James Halliday and Ogden Morrow is played out well (even though you don't see very much of them).

So, all in all RP1 for me was a disappointment. After following the project from the beginning, watching the trailers almost every day since they released my excitement for this project had reached fever-pitch. Sitting in the cinema waiting for the film to start my hands were trembling slightly and my mouth was dry, I could actually feel my elevated heart rate, that is how much I wanted RP1 to blow me away...It failed.

I have to close by doing something I don't want to have to do. I have to lay the blame for my utter disappointment at the feet of my hero. I am so sorry to say this, but I fear he may have lost the magic that made him and his films so special. Spielberg was by far the most influential person on this project, "The Captain" as it were. I feel that this time "The Captain" steered the ship so far off course that no-one knew where it was going until it was too late. I don't understand how something with so much potential could have gone so wrong in the hands of a true genius.

The last 15 minutes of the film are a complete waste of time, some of it is actually laughable. I almost get the feeling that the end of the screenplay was not proof-read, and was just filmed mindlessly with no actual real thought behind the outcome.

Ultimately, if you can't guess what happens, Wade wins. Then he decides to perform a huge rug-pull on all the people who risked their avatars in the battle to help him win. He closes the Oasis on Tuesdays and Thursdays, apparently to make people spend more time together in the real world. So after all his speech about "I love the Oasis so much, are you willing to fight to help save it?" he shuts it down for 48 hours a week...Cheers buddy! As a gamer he should know better than anyone how angry gamers get when the servers go offline for ONE hour!

What a shallow and soul-devoid hero Wade is, did he spare any thought for the people who earn their living from the Oasis? who receive their education in the Oasis? the lonely people (which Wade once was) who have no family or friends and use the Oasis as a means of social interaction? apparently not...

You see, Wade is now ok after his big win, he has a nice girlfriend, a nice fancy loft apartment and a fat wedge of cash in the bank. Who cares what closing the Oasis a couple of days a week will do to the people who are left in the slums?

In the end, Wade shows early signs of becoming the very thing he was fighting against in the first place...

Shame really...