Ready Player One

(Steven Spielberg/2018/USA)

Here is a fine example of taking a great book and transforming it into a mediocre film. Spielberg must have been on autopilot here, the nuance and excitement of the novel is reduced to cinematic trope and bland, box ticking Hollywood script fare.  Disappointing on many levels but it is Spielberg and even a run of the mill effort elicits a few decent action sequences.

(2/5)

Spaceship

(Alex Taylor/2016/UK)

Space cadet more like, if Taylor has succeeded in anything here it is in capturing adolescent angst wank in cinematic form. Spaceship will tractor beam you along for a while but quickly becomes unbearable.

(1/5)

The Survivalist

(Stephen Fingleton/2015/UK)

In a post apocalyptic world a man lives in the woods, foraging and subsisting on a small vegetable patch outside is cabin. He is visited by two women, a mother and daughter, who capsize his insular existence and change everything. The Survivalist is a quietly intense vision of a bleak future and by keeping things simple it succeeds in creating a very believable and riveting story. It’s very much like a play with a single setting more or less and a cast of three. The performances, script and in particular the sound work combine to engage the viewer in a world of desperate self preservation. The recurring, engorged volumes of characters breathing and shuffling movements reminded me of the Norwegian film Blind in places. It is an effective way of placing a connective tissue of intimacy between audience and screen. The trio’s lives become bound, threats from without increase and the film reaches a cataclysmic and yet hopeful resolution. One of the better dystopian future flicks I’ve seen in some time.

(3.5/5)