Not Ready Player One

Conditions: Warm and cozy

Film Review: 1917

The Men on a Mission War Movie has been around for a very long time.  So surely to make a new one would require something new, and director Sam Mendes has done exactly that.  This film has been constructed as essentially one continuous shot.  Our characters are introduced, briefed on the mission (go to a place and do a thing), go out on the mission, suffer through the mission, and then finally end in one long single take.  To a certain extent - there is a brief timeout for concussions and such.  And so it is a remarkable achievement in film making, an extraordinary effort to make it all so seamless it really feels like we're walking along with the two of them, right through the middle of world war 1

Our first character has been recruited because his brother is part of regiment that is about to walk into a giant German trap.  Communications are down, of course, so he has to take a note through no man's land, that will inform the general in charge to stop.  He is joined by his friend, and the two of them in a very British way prepare and head out.  Many hair raising sequences, tragic ends, and close calls happen, with a number of quick cameos from famous actors.  The film does a great job of showing the sheer mess, the inhumanity of the whole affair.  It's not an uplifting film in the end, despite any minor averted disaster, it really just demonstrates how mad we humans are.

If there is one issue, it's probably with the technique that made it all possible in the first place.  Committing to one long continuous shot is a brave choice, but it's also a limiting choice in how you tell the story.  There can be no asides, no other voices, no contrasting of the story being told, and no skipping of anything tedious.  Hence there can be nothing tedious, it has to be a series of exciting things that the characters encounter.  In that fashion the film plays more like a video game with very very good cut scenes, but not a good final boss battle.  However we have to assume that without this filming technique the movie probably wouldn't have been made at all, so basically it is what it needed to be.  Three rats out of five.

- Peace out