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atleastputinsomeeffortinuroc · 6 years

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Rant/Review: Ready Player One --aka-- Just Watch Wrinkle in Time Instead...

I don’t usually hate movies.

I know that seems backwards considering that this blog is me complaining and ranting incoherently about movies I don’t like, but very few movies leave me seething. Even all of the Detective Conan movies, which are mostly terrible pieces of garbage, I don’t necessarily hate. Red Crimson Letters is a terrible waste of time and energy, but I wasn’t insulted or felt talked down to. It was just a really bad movie I wanted to talk about.

In my life, there have only been three movies who have truly enraged me. “Batman v Superman,” “Joy,” and “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

Objectively, there are aspects that are genuinely good in all of them and are definitely better than I probably give them credit for...but I doubt it, but they just flare up an anger in me for one reason or another. They’re permanently on my “fuck that movie” list. And now…now there’s another entrant to that prestigious list.

Ready Player One.

My GOD. THIS was the book everyone’s been talking about? THIS is supposed to be the fucking bible of pop culture?! THIS MOVIE?! THE ONE THAT UNIRONICALLY HAS THE PHRASE SPOKEN BY HUMAN VOCAL CHORDS “FANBOYS ALWAYS KNOW A HATER?!!” ARE YOU GUYS--…ok. Ok, I need to calm down.

There are several, several, SEVERAL parts about this movie that don’t work, and I could go into a lot of the problems, but instead I’m going to try to talk about three aspects of the film. And for the sake of me not swearing up and down, we’re not going to talk about that godawful dialogue. Just know that it sucks.)

1) The ham-fisted arc

2) The protagonist and his trophy waifu

3) References over content

There are spoilers ahead, and I’m going to write this with the assumption that you’ve already seen the movie. If you haven’t, you’ve been warned. Anywho, let’s get started. Put on some “a-ha,” break your nostalgia goggles and join me as we go down this road where I collectively shit over Spielberg’s attempt to adapt a supposed “beloved classic.” (CAN YOU TELL I’M MAD?!)

1) The arc

Here’s the thing with arcs in narratives, and more specifically films.

They need to feel earned.

Your central character has gone through a life-altering change or point of view since the beginning of the film due to the adventures and trials had throughout the film. Good examples include “Mad Max: Fury Road” where Max finally lets others into his life and sees the value in not going through life alone as described by the part where he donates his own blood and tells Furiosa his name. Another good example is actually from the Oscar nominee Spielberg had LITERALLY LAST YEAR, “The Post.” In it, Kay Graham finally put her foot down and shows authority by stepping out of her comfort zone to release the Pentagon Papers—damn what the powers that be say. This is important to any narrative because it shows the flaws of your characters through their insecurities and hesitations to make them human rather than movie characters. Even if you have paragon characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, or Batman, they still have to overcome some kind of personal issue that is keeping them from achieving what they’ve wanted.

Now, if you look over to the main character, you can see that his arc was…what is it that was his arc?

He’s…he’s the same at the beginning as he was at the end.

“OH BUT HE HAS A PENTHOUSE AT THE END,” yeah that’s not a change. One could argue that the (even though the catalyst for change has no fucking relation to it) arc is about unplugging and enjoying the real world. The bits at the end with Easter Egg man where he starts going on and on and on about how he missed reality or something, and the VERY BRIEF bits at the beginning where you see people all over the VR systems, one of which is the mother neglecting a fire in the house and one where an Asian man almost commits suicide after losing all of his stuff in the game (it’s played for comedy, so THAT’S also pretty fun, because it’s not like Japanese suicide rates are a serious issue or anything OH WAIT.) So it’s about being close to reality and unplugging. Ok. Coolio.

But here’s the thing, similar to “War for the Planet of the Apes”…YOU HAVEN’T EARNED IT. There are brief moments where it kind of alludes to it (see the middle challenge with ‘oh yes, I should have kissed the girl during the Shining’ and the small bit at the middle where the main two are sitting there and the main dude has ONE HALF-ASSED LINE about how “it’s nice here. It’s slower,”) but that’s IT. It doesn’t actually give you a reason to think that staying in the Oasis and avoiding reality is a BAD thing. Sure you have abusive father obsessed with getting high scores but he’s just one dimensional asshole dad who dies and you don’t give a shit about it one second later after his parental figures are killed.

There are no real CONSEQUENCES to spending too much time in the Oasis, it’s just because he’s good at the game. And if there are, they sure as hell aren’t focused on in favor of mindless spectacle (which looks REALLY BAD by the way. I know it’s supposed to look fake because video game, but do the main characters have to use the ugliest models in existence?!) As such, the ending and central arc of learning is lost.

So what’s the arc? Well…there is none. Nothing is really learned, nothing is really gained that MATTERS aside from the keys to Willy Wonka’s goddamn chocolate factory.

Z or Perzival or Wade or generic-white-gamer-boy learns all of fucking NOTHING by the end. (As such, it makes the ending where he says “EVERYONE HAS TO BE OFF ON TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS” come off as BULLshit.)

But no, this is clearly the Spielberg classic. It’s not like Indiana Jones learned anything in the Last Crusade as a character only he totally fucking DID, HE LEARNED TO RESPECT AND LOVE HIS FATHER WHO HE PREVIOUSLY DESPISED AND THE IMPORTANCE OF—sorry. Sorry I’m getting a bit mad again.

Anywho, due to a lack of a real arc, it makes you think that the entire fucking plot was pointless. It was just inevitable that the good guy win because…well he’s the main character. He doesn’t say anything about anything but is instead dumb fluff, which would be fine…but here’s the thing. It also affects the main characters. And it affects them HARD.

2) Tweedledee and Tweedledumbass

The two main characters have no personality or character due to this lack of an arc.

The main man, Wade, his personality is…what exactly? He’s just generic hero-boy who is obsessed with the 80s. “He’s like a regular Star-Lord!” I hear you say, only he totally fucking isn’t. Starlord has baggage, has character has points and instances that stretch BEYOND just quoting 80’s movie and saying the actual phrase that a screenwriter actually wrote down and didn’t immediately delete that went “FANBOYS ALWAYS KNOW A HATER” NO I AM NOT OVER IT.

...Point is, the references don’t make Star-Lord who he is, it’s the character of Peter Quill himself. Cocky, brash, and in many ways, a child running from his past.

As for Wade, he’s got nothing. I’ve looked over this sometimes, depending on the writing or the situation, so maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much, but the actor who plays him isn’t doing a good job. I know I don’t talk about acting a lot, but the man…the man is just whining through his lines. He comes off as insufferable with his needless 80’s knowledge that I was genuinely rooting for the one-dimensional villain to kill that fucking brat.

Then we have Artemis or Samantha or Sam or its-the-pixie-cut-rebel-chick.

There are several scenes that are etched into my brain now (including a FUCKING NUT-SHOT AND A PASSWORD FOR A HUMAN ADULT THAT IS “B055MAN69.” IN A SPIELBERG MOVIE. THE MAN WHO MADE INDIANA JONES AND SCHINDLER’S LIST.), but one of the big ones is the final image of the film in which the main character in his 80’s man-boy cave spins around with his beautiful woman sitting in his lap as they suck face as the line “reality is pretty awesome anyway” or something like that. Aside from the main character not earning that statement as previously stated…fucking let’s look at it for what it is.

The man just won a real-life walking-talking waifu. A trophy wife that he wins at the end of the game.

She’s what probably made me see through the movie the most honestly. She makes this big fucking deal about “oh, but I’m not who you think I am on the outside, I’m not pretty” and then when you go outside to the real world, of course she’s the fucking gorgeous Hollywood white girl—she just has a goddamn birthmark on her eye to be her “blemish.”

“Oh but she’s insecure about it,” I hear you say--I’m sorry, but you mean to tell me NOBODY told her she’s fine and beautiful with the eye-mark BEFORE Wade? You mean to tell me she’s insecure, but not insecure enough to feel the need to buy fucking MAKE-UP!? I’m not saying that she needs it, I’m saying that the character’s central flaw is the WEAKEST FUCKIN FLAW I HAVE EVER SEEN. YOU WANNA CHANGE THE GAME, QUASIMODO THAT SHIT.

THEN, and this part was just fucking HILARIOUS to me, she mentions about how the ioi company fucking KILLED HER FATHER in a workshop and she has to stop him for revenge…and then it’s totally dropped. Like it’s never mentioned by the end. At all. She chucks a grenade into Mechagodzilla to kill the bossman but fuck me if it ain’t satisfying and adds physically NOTHING to her character.

Her character exists for one purpose. She is the love interest who sets the main character off on his journey. Nothing more. And I say that, because SHE’S THE CATALYST FOR HIM FINDING THE FIRST KEY. She tells him something that reminds him of something that solves the puzzle. And what’s more, I am willing to bet that THAT’S the reason they kept her Hollywood pretty. Because you need to have an attractive romantic love interest to keep the audience pleased.

Now apparently, she does more in the movie than she does in the book. And that’s great. That’s super. She’s the one breaking in to destroy the d20 of doom. Hell yeah I guess. But I also don’t care. You wanna know why? BECAUSE I AM NOT READING THE BOOK. Superficial changes that improve certain aspects doesn’t make the movie better than it is. It’s like polishing a fucking turd. Yeah, it’s nicer than what you had, but you are still making me hold this piece of dogshit.

They don’t have characters. They don’t have chemistry BECAUSE they don’t have characters. It’s a fucking wash.

3) Drowning in References

But now we talk about the big one. The big fucking thing that everyone and their mother is obsessing about this movie over. And the thing that has gotten me from not liking this movie to fucking DESPISING it.

The references.

To quote from people who will be seeing the movie in the theater *ahem*...

“OHMYGOD IS THAT TRACER?! OH AND IT’S HARLEY AND THE JOKER! OH! OH! OH! IRON GIANT! HALO! BORDERLANDS! BACK TO THE FUTURE! BATMAN—FUCKING IT’S THE BATMAN! THEY MENTIONED THRILLER! THAT’S PRINCE! STREET FIGHTER! MECHA-GODZILLA FIGHTING GUNDAM! MINECRAFT! NINJA TURTLES! FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH! STAR TREK! FIREFLY! THE SHINING! IT’S FUCKING CHUCKY!!!”

…Ok? So what?

Not to be a snob, but seriously—so what? Why does it matter?

Listen, I like crossovers too. I remember the Avengers and what a big goddamn deal it was, and how it made everyone’s jaw drop to the ground, and how in some ways, it still does. But whereas with those it felt organic, Ready Player One with its ninety thousand references felt…empty.

I’m going to bring out two comparisons to the table that do the same thing that Ready Player One did, “Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Both had pop-culture icons throughout them. One had all of the classic cartoons all spliced together—where you saw Daffy Duck and Donald Duck in the same shot having a dual piano-off. One of them had all of these video game characters that you loved and embraced since you were a kid, running around and hanging out ala “Toy Story.” These big names are all in the background, just like Ready Player One, but they’re clearly different in terms of execution. Why is that?

Well it’s because the movies weren’t reliant on them. Sure, Rodger Rabbit had fun moments with these big names, but if you took them out and animated totally new characters with similar personalities, what would you lose? Nothing. The plot is the same, the dynamics are the same, and it can still be seen as a salute to the classic animations from back in the day to also an allegory for the Jim Crowe era just as the book intentionally was. Same goes for Wreck-it Ralph, the character goes through a fundamental change that has him accepting who he is and how “there’s nobody else I’d rather be, than me” ALL THE WHILE paying respects to classic arcade video games.

The same can’t be said for Ready Player One. The instant you take away the pop-culture references, the movie loses its protective suit of armor to reveal it’s about…nothing.

It is.

Nothing.

The generic quest, the generic corporate baddie, the generic love interest, the main character has nothing to say, and the conflict is revealed to be flat—nothing about it sticks out or makes an impression.

And if you fail to make an impression without a fucking suit pop-culture references then, well, if I may use a pop-culture quote myself...“If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”

Plain and simple.

But then…there’s the one thing I can’t really debate.

“It’s just fun though, right?”

Yeah sure. I’ll admit around that third act, even though it was long overdrawn, I had fun watching the violence and references I understood while they blasted “We’re Not Gonna Take It” in the background.

But y’know what? It was just about as enjoyable as seeing someone adapt a piece of shitty fanfiction, because both have one thing in common for everything that they do: It’s just there for fan service. If you make the statement “well the Oasis is cool,” then you’ve clearly missed the point because you don’t like the movie, you like it’s gimmick. And it’s gimmick exists—it’s called VR Chat.

Meanwhile, screenwriters of different backgrounds, ethnicities, genders and religions from everywhere across the world are actually putting EFFORT into their screenwriting and directing. And while their action scenes for their blockbuster idea may not be perfect, they at least tried and did something new with it.

I went to see “Wrinkle in Time” today after I’d seen Ready Player One yesterday, needing to see literally anything good. And yeah, it’s not perfect. It’s got some stilted dialogue and some questionable acting on nearly all fronts at points and the conflict can be about as cliched as you can imagine, but the visuals, the costume design—you could tell everyone cared and put a goddamn effort into everything put forth. It’s much more gorgeous than the downright UGLY CG that was in the Oasis world in Ready Player One, and I guarantee you nobody had the phrase “B055MAN69” anywhere. It didn’t pander to kids or guys who wanted to feel validated for knowing a couple references. It wanted to tell the story of fighting back evil and hatred by embracing love. It’s cheesy and sappy…but fuck me, if it didn’t try to say something while having fun.

But fuck that movie right? We have Iron Giant fighting Mechagodzilla.

If you have that, then why bother putting in effort?

That’s what kills me. It’s lazy and people praise it because it just stuck pop-culture words in a fucking blender. Don’t call it innovative. Don’t call it original. Don’t call it anything than what it is.

80’s. Prepubescent. Fucking. Fanfiction.

You can love it and enjoy it if you want, I mean I don’t like not liking movies. It sucks. And in some aspects, I can see why you can if you turn your brain off but…I’m not gonna lie, to see this get away with murder insults me.

Listen, I love Spielberg. There is nobody I respect more in the business. His work in AI, and the reason why he did so to keep a dying friend’s vision alive will always keep him as one of my personal heroes but…sometimes you gotta call people out when they make shit. And I am.

I don’t care what anyone says, don’t see Ready Player One. Watch something worthwhile. Go to Netflix and watch “Stranger Things” if you’ve got that need for an 80′s kick, or hell--”Blade Runner 2049″ is a visual goddamn MARVEL. Go see “The Post” or “Jaws” if you want some good Spielberg. Just PLEASE! Go see something that isn’t just a bunch of references that almost feel as though it’s a remake of “ctrl+alt+del.”

(Random aside, people have told me to read the original book...but if that fucking thing is ANYTHING like this movie, I’d rather BURN IT than let it get one inch into my house. So no, I’m not going to read the book even if there are claims that it’s “better.” (Even though I believe that it’s impossible to say a book is better than it’s adaptation or vice versa because it’s two different mediums and as such it’s hardly fair, but that’s a whole other thing.) Point is, I’ve never been more turned off to a book in my godddamned life and I ain’t gonna bother.)

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ellenzone · 7 years

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Review: OK KO Let’s Play Heroes!

With hits like Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery and Critter Cruncher on their resume, and the mysterious Below continuously grabbing attention when it shows up at festivals, it’s clear that CAPY is at the forefront of the indie scene. It might come as a surprise, then, that their first game in four years is a licensed title.

OK KO Let’s Play Heroes isn’t the first time Cartoon Network works with an indie studio to bring their animated worlds to life. CN Games and Adult Swim Games have both attracted attention for working with renowned indie studios like Devolver Digital and releasing shockingly beloved licensed titles, like Pocket Mortys and the Steven Universe: Save the Light series. What’s curious about OK KO, then, is that it’s the first CAPY Games release since Super Time Force in 2014. With hits like Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery on their resume and the mysterious Below grabbing the spotlight whenever it shows up at a game festival, it’s certainly surprising to see CAPY working on a licensed game. Make no mistake, however, OK KO Let’s Play Heroes is as fun as anything CAPY’s worked on, and it’s imbued with a sense of childhood wonder that makes it unforgettable.

I’ve written about this game before – I was fortunate enough to get some hands-on time with it at Day of the Devs, and I’m glad to see the game hasn’t changed much sense then. For the unfamiliar, Let’s Play Heroes is based on the ongoing Cartoon Network show OK KO Let’s Be Heroes. The cartoon, from powerhouse creators Ian Jones-Quartey (Steven Universe) and Toby Jones (Regular Show), follows the journey of a young boy, KO, who dreams of being a high-level superhero like his mommy. To become the greatest hero he can be, KO works at Gar’s Bodega, a convenience store for superheroes run by the legendary Mr. Gar, and defends Lakewood Plaza Turbo from the machinations of Gar’s rival Lord Bossman. Heroes and villains are all assigned POW Cards, trading cards that track their individual levels, and KO dreams of having his own POW Card someday.

As KO, your work at Gar’s Bodega consists of accomplishing tasks for your coworkers and defending Lakewood Plaza Turbo. On any given day you get to choose which coworker to finish tasks for. The dialogue and adventuring and the mishmash of gameplay styles are deeply reminiscent of Night in the Woods, in the best way possible. Side plots flesh themselves out through the missions you accomplish, players get a chance to choose from various dialogue options to spice up the conversations, and along the way you can make other plaza denizens happy by helping them recover stolen items or finding hidden objects throughout the plaza. In all of these activities you learn more about the people you’re helping, and it’s hard not to become invested in KO’s mission to help as many people as possible.

In the midst of helping your friends and allies, KO is tasked with beating up Boxmore robots sent by Lord Bossman to attack the plaza. There’s a healthy mix of random battles and forced encounters. Players can choose to take on as many random battles as they’d like, with battle difficulty connoted by the color and size of the boxes they encounter, or they can for the most part avoid brawling until it’s absolutely necessary. That said, I absolutely wouldn’t recommend skipping out – for a studio that’s never built an arcade brawler, Let’s Play Heroes makes CAPY look like 90s Konami. It’s not super advanced - there’s only a punch button, there’s no light/heavy attack, there’s no kicking - but a combination of charged punches and dash attacks makes brawls into fluid and fun affairs. By the time you’ve leveled KO up in stats, you’re granted access to a swath of really fun-to-use attacks, and racking up high combos requires a significant amount of skill.

Certain brawls change things up by adding in platforms, drone villains, and other light touches, and the game doesn’t hold back on its difficulty. If you go in expecting a light-handed cartoon game, you’ll be surprised at how tough some of the bosses get, and high-level play requires. Random brawls do lean on being repetitive, as you’ll be fighting the same set of Darryls, Shannons, and Jethros throughout your days as a plaza employee; however, I never got bored in that repetition, thanks to a constantly evolving moveset and a seemingly endless selection of super moves, or Powie Zowies.

Those Powie Zowies are really what surprised me the most. When I got my hands on OK KO at Day of the Devs, I was only able to try a scant few. By the final boss fight in OK KO, provided you’ve done all the chores for the plaza’s denizens, there are some 20 specials that you can call on a whim. Aerial slams from Mr. Gar, a rainstorm of bullets from KO’s coworker Rad, and a fearsome ground combo from KO’s mommy Carol are some of the ones I relied on the most early on. As I continued to play, I unlocked fun new special moves like a burrito truck that drives through and knocks into all the enemies on the field, and Godzilla-like foot to stomp on enemies and deliver massive damage. Tougher battles require tapping into these specials and building strategies based on how long they’ll take to charge and what they’ll do.

Powie Zowies are unlocked by helping the denizens of the plaza. While unlocking these are mostly optional, the mystery of what each is going to do drove me to do whatever I could to unlock them quicker. I was pleased to see how well these systems flowed into each other in practice. I needed money, Techos, to buy an item for a townie to unlock their Powie Zowie; thankfully, I had unlocked a special ability where Teamster, the self-cloning construction hero, runs onto the field and throws all the Boxmore badniks into glitch mode. I used Teamster to glitch the robots, knocked out a rapid-fire combo to beat microchips out of them, and sold the microchips to KO’s hacker friend Dendy for quick cash so I could, for example, buy a snack for A Real Magical Skeleton from the bodega, or buy antenna gel for Rad from the rooftop barbershop.

That the various quests and brawls don’t feel like distinct halves but rather gel together as a full experience is the real magic that makes this game special. 100%’ing OK KO is something that comes naturally; unlocking the game’s various POW Cards and completing the story go hand-in-hand, and I left the story absolutely wanting more. Fortunately enough, the Lakewood Plaza arcade has a fight simulator, so I can return to the game’s brawls whenever I’d like.

Admittedly, I haven’t actually 100%’d the game yet. For the most part, Powie Zowies are unlocked after receiving a villager’s card from the POW Card vending machine and accomplishing tasks. However, there are four POW Cards that don’t show up in the vending machine packs, meaning there are Powie Zowies I don’t have. Also, there’s constant references to mystical “Zappy Wappies” that apparently make Powie Zowies stronger… but the game doesn’t *give* them to you. Curiously enough, there’s a code machine on the POW Card vendor that takes three-symbol inputs, and the only Zappy Wappy I was able to get came courtesy of a cute little promo goodie that CN Games sent me. I was absolutely stumped when it came to unlocking more Zappy Wappies and filling out my card binder… that is, until I watched the cartoon again and looked closely. I’m well on my way to completing the game, now, but in order to *finish* it I’ll need to watch the rest of the season and come back to the game when I find what I need. I’m trying to be vague about this because I want you to discover this on your own as I did, but ultimately, I’m really excited that the game’s given me a reason to come back, and being a fan of the cartoon anyway, having a reason to rewatch every episode isn’t exactly a bad thing.

There’s a charm and a structure here that makes me feel right at home. Being a hero is more than just fighting a bunch of robots. KO doesn’t earn levels on his POW Card by taking on baddies, he earns them by making his friends happy and helping them earn their levels back. A lot of the missions are ridiculous, and many of them feel like mini episodes of the cartoon. Enid wants the cool teens in the alley to notice her on social media, so KO asks Dendy to help him make a gif of himself getting hurt. Rad becomes embarrassed after not being able to beat his box lifting record, so his muscles ask you to gather goodies for a gift basket they’re going to give him as an apology. There’s an endearing sentimentality that runs through the show and CAPY has clearly worked to bake that same feeling into the game.

I credit CAPY with that sentimentality because all of this stuff was done in-house. The animation and art style mimics the show but is absolutely its own thing. CAPY wrote the scenarios and dialogue themselves, and thanks to the delivery from the show’s wonderful voice cast the cutscenes are really fun and quite funny. The flow of the overworld, where players move in and out of different static “scenes”, feels stylistically like a Paper Mario game, and though this can lead to minor confusion with regards to movement it’s honestly gorgeous to look at. Overall, it’s super unique, and it’s all clearly done from a place of love for both the OK KO series and cartoons in general.

Granted, the game’s not perfect. It’s a tad repetitive, moving about the overworld can be a chore at times, and there’s some audio mixing weirdness that makes the cutscenes louder than everything else. Also, it *might* bug you that completing the game means watching the entire series. I don’t know if that’s really all that negative, though – like the game it inspired, the cartoon is endearing, really cute, and super fun. Come for the solid arcade brawler, stay for the heartfelt story about a kid trying to do his best.

I’m glad to say that CN Games has genuinely succeeded in bringing another cartoon to life as a really fun game. Thanks to the hard work of studios like CAPY, animated worlds like Steven Universe and OK KO are getting the games they deserve. It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten our hands on a CAPY title, and I’m glad to say this one’s absolutely a knockout.

Disclosure: I received a code for the PS4 version of OK KO Let’s Play Heroes from CN Games.

#games #ok ko #ok ko let's be heroes #ok ko let's play heroes #capy games #ps4 #pc #steam #xbox one #video games #review #writing #screenshots #playthrough

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