MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
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Virtually brilliant
Steven Spielberg's exhilarating sci-fi fantasy has his hallmark stamped all over it, says MARIA DUARTE
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
Ready Player One (12A)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
READY PLAYER ONE is set in a dystopian future where people spend most of their time in a virtual reality universe called Oasis in order to escape their bleak and harsh lives — not so far-fetched, given the growing popularity of VR.
Based on Ernest Cline's best-selling novel of the same name the narrative centres on troubled teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) who in 2045 spends all his waking hours in the Oasis as a better and more confident version of himself.
On the death of its eccentric creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) — a modern day Willy Wonka — it is revealed that he will bequeath his legacy aka Oasis and his immense fortune to the winner of a three-part game within his virtual creation.
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