Welcome back to Rhode Island Movie Corner’s annual end-of-the-year list where I’m counting down my Top 12 Favorite Films of 2018. We are now halfway through the list, and today in Part 3 of this 4-part series, we’ll be delving into films 6-4. If you missed my 6 Honorable Mentions and films 12-7, just click the links below to be directed back to Parts 1 and 2. Thus, with all that out of the way, it’s time to once again get back to the list…
To start off the second half of this list, we have an admittedly controversial pick at #6 because it’s a film that’s based on a rather polarizing bit of source material. In the case of the film, though, I’d argue that it did manage to alleviate some of the issues that audiences have had with its original incarnation.
Ready Player One was the first film of 2018 that I saw twice in theaters. After the second time, I then proceeded to download the audiobook of author Ernest Cline’s original novel off Audible, and in doing so, I began to understand why it’s been rather controversial. While Ready Player One did do well with critics and audiences when it was first published in 2011, it’s since attracted a more polarizing response from those who feel that it’s nothing more than a hodge-podge of pop cultural references. And to be fair, it’s easy to see how it could’ve been just that given that the story revolves around an advanced VR system that allows its users to live through all their various pop cultural related fantasies, whether it’s climbing Mount Everest with Batman or driving a DeLorean from Back to the Future. As such, while I tend not to get into discussions about the long-standing debate of ‘book vs. film’, there are various reasons why I find that this is one of the cases of book-to-film adaptations where the film is indeed better than the book. For starters, it helps that the film was directed by someone as revered as Steven Spielberg who, along with co-writer Zak Penn, managed to streamline some of the more aggressively nerdy aspects of Cline’s story. Most specifically, they managed to tone down a lot of the ‘leetspeak’ that dominated much of the novel and has arguably dated it. Sure, there are still some very cheesy one-liners here and there (e.g. “a fanboy knows a hater”), but at the same time, we probably should be thankful that we didn’t have to watch a Spielberg film that featured phrases like ‘Suxorz’, a derogatory term used to describe the main antagonist’s army of indentured servants.
But easily the biggest improvement over the novel is how the film portrays its characters. Even with that said, though, several critics have noted that one of the biggest shortcomings of the film is that it’s quite lacking in terms of character development… and they’re not entirely wrong about this. Aside from main protagonist Wade Watts/Parzival, his ally/love interest Samantha/Art3mis, main antagonist Nolan Sorrento, and Wade’s best friend Helen/Aech (albeit to a lesser extent due to the film not delving into the full reveal of Aech’s identity as a young lesbian woman), every other character in the film has a very limited role in the plot. But if there’s one upside to this, it’s that the film manages to make these characters a lot more likable when compared to the novel. Because of the novel’s heavy use of ‘leetspeak’, the main characters frequently came off as being rather unpleasant, with a lot of their interactions consisting of them just lobbying geek-related insults at each other. Wade Watts, especially, was quite obnoxious when it came to some of his narration. Thankfully, this isn’t as big of an issue in the film as Tye Sheridan does a very nice job of making this version of Wade a lot more down-to-earth. And while the book does spend a lot more time focusing on the formation of Wade and his friends’ clan, the High Five, their camaraderie feels a lot more natural in the film. Sheridan has solid chemistry with Olivia Cooke as Samantha/Art3mis and I do appreciate that the film has them meeting in person a lot earlier than in the book, which didn’t see them interact outside of the OASIS until the very end. And while the other members of the High Five obviously don’t get as much to work with by comparison, Lena Waithe (Aech/Helen), Win Morisaki (Daito/Toshiro), and Philip Zhao (Zhou/Sho) all get to have their own unique standout moments in the film, like when Daito enters the final battle manning one of the mechs from Mobile Suit Gundam.
In conclusion, despite all that I’ve said about this film, I do still recognize why Ready Player One has been such a controversial bit of media. At their core, both the book and film rely heavily on their various references to pop culture, and because of this, they can also serve as a representation of some of the more unpleasant aspects of fandom that, as I’ve noted before, have sadly become a lot more prominent this past year. But when it comes to the film, it thankfully manages to tone down some of the more extreme elements of its source material. Simply put, Steven Spielberg turned this full-blown tribute to 80’s pop culture (something that he himself had a prominent hand in creating) into the kind of film that he was known for making at the time like E.T. and the Indiana Jones series. And while I’m not saying that this is necessarily ‘as good’ as those films, I have the feeling that it would’ve been a lot more like the book (which, to reiterate, wouldn’t have been a good thing) had a different filmmaker been involved. Heck, Spielberg even went as far as to limit references to his own filmography save for one moment with a T-Rex and a few nods to Back to the Future (which he only produced). And because of all this, that trademark Spielbergian magic is on solid display here in a visually stunning sci-fi adventure that boasts some fantastic visual effects that help bring the world of the OASIS to life. Highlights of this film’s impressive visuals include an incredibly thrilling race through the streets of a virtual Manhattan that sees racers deal with everything from wrecking balls to King Kong and an almost pitch-perfect recreation of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic The Shining. In short, while I don’t ‘hate’ Ready Player One the novel the same way that a lot of people on the internet do, I ultimately prefer the film adaptation because, if anything, it proves that you really shouldn’t underestimate one of the most prolific filmmakers in the industry.
My Number 5 pick is a lot like Solo as it’s another film that truly deserved to do better than it ultimately did at the box-office. Thus, it’s quite sad that both ended up being undone by some incredibly moronic bits of controversy.
5. FIRST MAN
As you might have guessed from the title, First Man tells the story of the iconic Apollo 11 mission where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon. More specifically, the film focuses on Armstrong (it is, after all, an adaptation of his 2005 biography of the same name) and the emotional state that he was in prior to launch. Thus, for most of the film, Armstrong may come off as a blank slate to most people as he spends a lot more time preparing for the mission than he does interacting with people, whether it’s his NASA co-workers or even his wife Janet and their two sons. However, the film ultimately reveals why this is the case during the final moments of the film after Armstrong and Aldrin manage to land on the moon’s surface. While Aldrin heads off to jump around on the surface, Armstrong, in a moment of solitude, stands before the Little West Crater and proceeds to drop a bracelet into it that belonged to his daughter Karen, who tragically died at a young age from a brain tumor. Now to be clear, there hasn’t been any official confirmation that this moment ever happened, but as the filmmakers have pointed out, it’s still a reasonable conclusion to come to as it’s been said that it wasn’t uncommon for astronauts to leave family mementos on the moon. But in the context of the film, it does work to explain what Armstrong was going through at the time and why he ultimately decided to focus more on his work than his friends and family. In doing so, it provided him an outlet where he wouldn’t be distracted by his grief, and the eventual success of the Apollo 11 mission allowed him to have that final moment of emotional catharsis and officially move on from the loss of his daughter. It’s a beautifully executed emotional moment thanks in large part to an excellent performance by Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong.
Aside from the film’s emotional poignancy, director Damien Chazelle also manages to craft some genuinely tense sequences whenever a spaceflight is involved. Whereas most films of this nature tend to rely on grand exterior shots of spacecraft traveling through space, most of this film’s spaceflight sequences stick within the cramped confines of the ships themselves. In doing so, it helps to illustrate the fact that what these astronauts are trying to accomplish is incredibly dangerous, and the film certainly doesn’t gloss over this little factoid. Whether it’s the near-disastrous Gemini 8 mission that Neil Armstrong was involved in or the devastating fire that killed the crew of Apollo 1, it’s clear that many risks were taken to get a man on the moon. But once the film finally gets to the grand finale that is the Apollo 11 mission, that’s where things start to change. Compared to previous spaceflight sequences, more exterior shots are used (while still primarily focusing on interior shots) and said shots are generally held for longer periods of time whereas previous sequences featured more rapid cuts. And, of course, once Armstrong and Aldrin step out onto the moon’s surface, all lunar sequences were filmed with IMAX cameras, and while we weren’t granted the chance to see this film in true 70 mm like some of Christopher Nolan’s recent films, this is still one of the best uses of the format. Simply put, this was the very definition of a film that was a must-see in IMAX… a shame, then, that not many people went to go see it in IMAX because the film didn’t do so hot at the box-office. While it wasn’t an outright flop, it just barely managed to gross over $100 million worldwide… and if you follow film-related news, then you’re probably aware of one of the reasons behind this.
It all started when the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival this past August, where it was reported that it did not include a scene where Armstrong and Aldrin plant the American flag on the moon’s surface. Chazelle and Gosling (with further support from Armstrong’s sons Rick and Mark) noted that this was because they wanted to focus more on Armstrong’s story, but nevertheless, this attracted tons of controversy that mainly came from the conservative side of the political spectrum. And while I know that some will argue that there was a bit more to it than just that, it’s clear that this debacle played a considerable factor in the film’s commercial underperformance. Because of this, I must ask the following… was the planting of the American flag really the most important aspect of the Apollo 11 mission? Yes, it’s true that a lot of what led to Apollo 11 was due to the Space Race that was going on at the time between the U.S. and Russia, something that the film does properly address. And yet, this whole controversy seems to imply that simply one-upping Russia was the only thing that mattered during this moment in history, thus ignoring all the achievements in human engineering that helped make it possible. Plus, if there’s one thing that was overlooked during this debacle… it’s that the flag does appear in the damn film… granted, it’s only seen from afar, but the point still stands. This is nothing but a completely fabricated bit of controversy, and if you ask me, it’s way more offensive to the legacy of the Apollo 11 mission than what it was trying to implicate. Thus, I do hope that First Man becomes one of those films that gains a greater audience in the years to come, as it’s another excellent outing from Damien Chazelle that shows that there was much more to Neil Armstrong than just the fact that he was the first man to walk on the moon.
And now we return to the controversial claim that I made back in Part 2 where I noted that this year’s Best Animated Feature winner, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, was not my #1 animated film of the year. Instead, it’s my Number 4 pick, which I’d argue was a worthy follow-up to its beloved predecessor even with all the expectations that it had to overcome.
Calling Incredibles 2 one of the most anticipated films of the past year would be a massive understatement. Pixar’s 2004 classic The Incredibles is easily one of the studio’s most beloved outings. Plus, it’s quite arguably the only Pixar film not named Toy Story that fans legitimately demanded a sequel to given that it ended on a cliffhanger that teased a new villain. And while it may have taken 14 years for it to happen, the continuing adventures of the Parr family have finally seen the light of day. Now, obviously, the superhero film genre has changed quite a bit since the original Incredibles, namely thanks to the introduction of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And if anything, it’s clear that writer/director Brad Bird was well-aware of this as this film continues to focus more on its characters than its superhero-related hi-jinx. Sure, this film does feature some more excellent superhero action sequences, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the Parr family and their strong dynamic. With that in mind, though, some felt that this film heavily rehashed the plot of the first film by having one of the parents go off to fight crime while the other stays behind. And while it’s true that the plot of this film sees Helen Parr AKA Elastigirl head out to fight crime while Bob Parr AKA Mr. Incredible becomes the stay-at-home dad, there’s a bit more to it than that. The first film was mainly about Mr. Incredible overcoming a severe mid-life crisis, which ultimately ends up helping him reaffirm his devotion to his family.
As for the sequel, it sees Bob and Helen undergo a switcheroo regarding their parental roles. Helen, who had become a homemaker since the outlawing of superheroes, finds herself having to leave her family during a crucial time in their lives even though what she’s doing will help ensure their future. Bob, meanwhile, must swallow his pride and let his wife do all the superhero stuff while he tries to understand the ins and outs of being a stay-at-home dad, which includes everything from him trying (and failing) to fix his daughter’s dating woes to asking the age-old question when it comes to helping his son with his homework, “Why would they change math?”. In other words, this does a nice job of tying into what is arguably Bob and Helen’s greatest character arcs in these films, with Bob having to learn that even someone as strong as him isn’t invincible and Helen rediscovering her identity as a superhero after spending several years trying to move on from such a lifestyle. Meanwhile, their kids (i.e. Dash and Violet) continue to play vital roles in the plot, and yes, for those who were eager to see how this film would follow up on the previous film’s finale, it doesn’t disappoint when it comes to showcasing the full extent of infant Jack-Jack’s various powers (e.g. the scene where he fights off a raccoon). Thus, as I noted before, the strong dynamic from this family of supers is easily the best aspect of the film, but they are matched by a solid villain in the form of the mind-controlling Screenslaver, who’s revealed to be tech-savvy Evelyn Deavor. However, this also happens to be one of the more contentious aspects of the film for many people for various reasons that range from the rather obvious reveal that she is the villain to the argument that she’s just not as good of a villain as Syndrome was in the last film. Once again, though, I’d argue otherwise as both Incredibles films do a good job in giving us villains who serve as a critique on the concept of superheroes.
In the first film, we had Syndrome AKA Buddy Pine, Mr. Incredible’s highly enthusiastic #1 fan who turns to the dark side when his idol rejects him (in other words, toxic fandom in a nutshell). His plan is to use the various inventions that he has created to grant those without superpowers the chance to be superheroes themselves. As he puts it, “when everyone’s super… no one will be”. In the case of the sequel and Evelyn Deavor, we have a villain whose motivations are based on the public’s dependence on superheroes. As revealed by her brother Winston in a flashback, their father was such a big fan of superheroes that he even had direct landlines to two of the Supers, Gazerbeam and Fironic. And yet, unfortunately, this ends up costing him his life as he couldn’t get into contact with them while he was dealing with burglars because of the Supers being outlawed. Thus, while Winston works to “bring supers back into the sunlight”, Evelyn secretly aspires to get rid of them for good. In short, both Incredibles villains work excellently within the context of their respective film’s plots. And thanks to its strong emotional depth and phenomenal animation that, dare I say, is often on par with Into the Spider-Verse when it comes to replicating the comic book style, Incredibles 2 is an excellent follow-up to its iconic predecessor. However, I’m not going to compare these two films to determine ‘which is better’ because I feel that this would be a bit unfair to the sequel as I obviously have a lot more experience with the original Incredibles. It was one of my favorites as a kid (and yes, it still stands as one of my all-time favorite Pixar films to this day) and I even still remember going to see it in theaters back in 2004. But because the sequel is just as well-made by comparison, I’m happy to say that those who didn’t ‘grow up’ with the original now get the chance to witness everything that made The Incredibles an undisputed classic of my generation.
And that concludes Part 3 of Rhode Island Movie Corner’s list of my Top 12 Favorite Films from 2018. Thanks for following along and be sure to check back in tomorrow for the big finale where I delve into my Top 3 Favorite Films from the past year.
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