Rating (3 out of 5 Stars)
In short, a homage to the many childhood favorites, Buckaroo Banzai, Back to the Future, Atari, Iron Giant, etc… Its all in here. There is a story as well, but it is long and we know what is going to happen, so really what’s the point of watching.
When say long, that is 2 Hours and 20 minutes. At that length it needs to be the best movie ever, or have some real surprises. It doesn’t. So -1 for being too long and -1 for total lack of creativity in the story.
The movie is set in the future, where apparently, people live in slums and have figured out ways to stack cars and mobile. If anyone can do it, I would believe it would be the people in Ohio. Ohio is the center of the universe after all.
Well to get a break from life, people go into this computer game, called the Oasis. The creator of the Oasis died, and left there hidden keys in the games. If you find all three keys, you inherit his company.
5 years later, our hero played by Ty Sheridan, is competing in the race to find the first key and meets our heroine, Olivia Cooke. This is going to be a shocker, they fall in love. She challenges him about his knowledge of the founder of Oasis, and then he goes to the library, and discovers the first clue to win the race and find the first key.
Ben Mendelssohn plays the evil white corporate guy, now this is a plot twist I never heard of before (sarcasm BTW). He has a corporation, and their employees go into the game and compete to win the keys. Ben of courses use one of his corporate stooges, Hannah John-Kamen, to go after Ty and his troupe in the real world.
TJ Miller is the evil player within the game. Ben has hired him to hunt down Ty.
This is a movie you show your kids and explain to them basic movie writing. You mention, “See when they show you the Iron Giant, well that will be important later”. That happens all over the place in this movie. So basic Hollywood…so basic High School film class. You start to lose interest after awhile.
Oh, I guess I should talk about good points…..I had to think there.
- They enter the movie the Shining, to find one of the keys. I thought that part was really well done, especially since one of Ty’s troupe of five, doesn’t like horror movies.
- The visual and explanation of the Oasis was cool. But it was hard to determine what people really did for money, since you won or lost it in the game.
That is it. It is a good natured, predictable and tidy Hollywood movie that is acceptable for children. It is so Hollywood, that the bad guys get arrested in the end, so this is perfect for children.
I wish I could say it was more than that, but I can’t. I used a free coupon to rent this and now seeing it, I wish I would have used my coupon on something else.