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Hitman (2007)
Hitman (2007)
2007 | Action, Mystery
9
6.5 (10 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Plot, casting, action, SFX, easter eggs (0 more)
No official sequel (0 more)
Almost perfect
Contains spoilers, click to show
Based on the world wide videogame franchise phenomenon, Hitman follows a highly trained silent assassin, known only as Agent 47, who after learning of a plot against him possibly stemming from his organizations HQ, he is quickly thrown into a game of cat and mouse with interpol agent's quickly closing in on him.

Timothy Olyphant stars as Agent 47 in this barrel blazing, hardcore action/thriller story of violent retribution.

Fantastic stunt action, edge of your seat combat sequences & superb special effects.

Actually considered the worst of the two (unless you've actually seen both, then ya know better) this is one of the closest I've seen to a perfect videogame movie adaptation.
  
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Crystal (148 KP) rated Ready Player One in Books

Jun 4, 2018 (Updated Jun 8, 2018)  
Ready Player One
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline | 2011 | Fiction & Poetry
9
8.9 (161 Ratings)
Book Rating
Gaming references (3 more)
80s Easter eggs
Immersive
Not your typical dystopia
Slow starter (0 more)
Don't judge a book by its movie
I still have not seen the movie and I have heard mixed reviews. However, I very much enjoyed this book. If you are into young adult dystopia then this book is for you. Ready Player One is one of the few books I've read multiple times. It is one of those books where you can really catch on to little details you may have missed the first time around. This book is chock full of 80s pop culture references.

I say this book is a bit of a slow starter and that is because of the world building. We get to know the main character and his in real life daily issues and also the craftsmanship of the fully immersive VR world that is the Oasis. I felt like I was plugging in along with the other players.

Synopsis: The story takes place in the very near future. Sky rocketing gas prices have forced people to give up driving. Most people now actually work in a VR office rather than commuting. The economy has fallen apart and people depend on the Oasis for everything. The big baddie is a mega corporation that wants to control the Oasis, and in turn control the country/world. Regular kids raised by the Oasis take on this corporation simply by trying to win an Easter egg hunt set up by the games founder. The stakes are high. What starts off as a contest quickly becomes a matter of life and death as our heroes get closer to solving the quest and winning it all.
  
Love, Simon (2018)
Love, Simon (2018)
2018 | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Strong LGBT representation, close to the book, cute, romantic (0 more)
Subtle changes that weren't too bad but different from the book (0 more)
Love in a good form
I loved the book that this movie is based on so, so much. It was one of the best books that I read in 2018 along with it's sequel Leah on the Offbeat. And this was one of the best movies that I saw in 2018. The acting is superb and it's so relevant to today's society and culture with the pop culture references of Harry Potter, Brendon Urie, and even a Hamilton Easter Egg which I enjoyed. It also touches your heart and has a lot of themes to do with family at the very core and learning to let people see you for who you really are
  
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Erika (17788 KP) rated A Long Long Way in Books

Mar 22, 2020  
A Long Long Way
A Long Long Way
Sebastian Barry | 2005 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Slow beginning (0 more)
I got this nookbook on sale for $1.99. I'm glad I only spent that. I enjoy Great War fiction, and the added dynamic of the Easter Uprising of 1916 made me even more interested in it.
This book started out so slowly, and some of the descriptions felt completely unnecessary. I don't want to read about every time someone let their bowels go when they were scared literally and figuratively sh--less.
The one positive is that I felt like the dynamic of the Irish soldiers coming back to an Ireland they didn't recognize, and that they were considered traitors in some ways because they were fighting with the English.
Never expect a happy ending to a book (or any media) about soldiers in the Great War.
  
Holiday Inn (1942)
Holiday Inn (1942)
1942 | Classics, Comedy, Musical
4
8.1 (13 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Music (2 more)
Dancing
Cast
Story (2 more)
Modern Marketing
Length
Far from what I expected...
All my life I thought this was a Christmas film, yet today I when I kickstarted the Christmas viewing for this year, I found Christmas barely entered into it. Despite the appearances of DVD covers, the inclusion of the classic Bing hit "White Christmas" and "Happy Holidays", Christmas features in this very little.

Bing and Fred are incredible as always, but it felt like a pick and mix of songs relating to various holidays, including "Easter Parade", "Abraham" (an uncomfortable blackface celebration of the birth of Lincoln), and a song about firecrackers for the 4th of July.

Overall, even at only 100 minutes, the film was too long to maintain my interest, most likely due to the fact I was expecting a far more festive treat.
  
Ready Player One
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline | 2011 | Fiction & Poetry
9
8.9 (161 Ratings)
Book Rating
Ernest Cline has written something, alright.

If you are not into geeky things, just turn back now. I enjoyed this book for all the references, but the storyline itself was meh.

The writing was excellent as well, but, set in a dystopian not-so-distant future where everyone turns to OASIS, a simulation, to escape the reality of the world… Not a fan. Why don’t they try to fix it?

The main character, Wade, is on a quest (along with everyone else) to find the Easter egg that the creator of OASIS left in game after he died. The winner? Gets his fortune and the company that made the game.

Yeah, there is a prize for you! If you enjoyed Monty Python, read this book. If you are into all the geeky things, read this book. It is an interesting journey and one that I did enjoy.
  
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Kate (355 KP) rated Diggy's adventure in Apps

Jan 15, 2019  
Diggy's adventure
Diggy's adventure
Games
7
8.0 (2 Ratings)
App Rating
I have put good because my opinion of it has changed over the years. I first discovered it as a Facebook game and played it on the computer and then a year or so back I discovered the app and downloaded it onto my ipad. The concept is quite easy you click on square to clear them to find paths through or to find items and complete quests or tasks. You travel through various countries and they do download special events for Christmas, Easter etc. I have deleted it several times and then reloaded it to play the special items but as the story progresses it uses more and more energy but you can create extra energy by digging out your camp, but those items get more and more expensive too. I would like to completely restart the game but you are not able to do this.
  
Ready Player One (2018)
Ready Player One (2018)
2018 | Sci-Fi
Excellent visual effects, nice changes to the story to fit with the cinematic (plenty of sections of the book would have fallen a bit flat in a short form film) and lots of Easter eggs (0 more)
A fair few bits missing from the book, and sometimes felt like a mad dash to finish the movie. (0 more)
A decent adaptation of a great book
Contains spoilers, click to show
From the get go, I think I'd best say I came to this with a pre-concieved notion that I was going to enjoy it, having read the book several times and having a long term love affair with Steven Spielberg (child of the 80s, so most of my formative years were spent sitting worshipping at the alter of Spielberg and Lucas) so I was aware that I was going to enjoy this film regardless, that said, there are moments in the film that fell flat for me, but on the whole....its a very enjoyable little action/adventure romp....with plenty in it for film lovers (the whole shining sequence had me grinning from ear to ear) and gamers too ( the whole film is deeply rooted in gamer culture and there are more gaming Easter eggs than you can shake a stick at) there's plenty of heart to this film too, and by the time the credits rolled I left the theatre thoroughly entertained, had this film come out a few years back, it would have been lauded as a sci-fi/adventure classic, however we now live in a post marvel world where every film they release seem to raise the bar very high, and films like this get lost in the shuffle a little, does this make it a worse movie....not at all, but it probably didn't get the acclaim it deserved because of being released in a sea of blockbusters.
So in closing, if you're looking for that perfect Sunday afternoon adventure film....you could do a lot worse than giving this a watch....see how many movie/gaming references you can spot
  
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Lindsay (1700 KP) rated An Amish Second Christmas in Books

Aug 30, 2018 (Updated Apr 9, 2019)  
AA
An Amish Second Christmas
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
In When Christmas Comes Again, Kathleen and her four children are having their first Christmas without a love one. Kathleen starts to see an English man around the town. She receives a package at the door. There some photos in the box. There more to this story and quite a few twist and turns. There seems to be a mystery about this man. The man seem to know what or how some of the feeling of the family. Do they need help or will Kathleen mislead the what going on with her children?

In Her Christmas Pen Pal, Joy has to deal with her boyfriend who want to see other women. She starts to write a letter to her cousin. Though it happens it sent to the wrong person. The mystery man writes back to Joy. The Cabinet maker and Joy send letter back and forth with each other. There are twist and turns in this story and has a good mystery in the story as well. Do Noah and Joy get together? This grandmother starts talking to Joy about her grandson. Will Joy find out that the woman was talking about?

In A Gift for Anne Marie, Anne Marie wondering about the changes that are coming. She finds out about her mothers letters. When she does she finds out that her mother is getting re-married and they are moving. Anne Marie does not like it at all. She start to feel the changes between her and Nathaniel. Nathaniel does not like the fact that Annie Marie may be moving. Is there anything either can do about it?

In The Christmas Aprons, Easter Glick is a nanny for her cousin until her cousin can deal with her baby. While here Easter receives her mother recipe that every popular. She learns what she want to to be accepted for herself and not though the pies she bakes. Will she learn about Love?
  
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Otway93 (567 KP) rated the PlayStation 4 version of Assassin's Creed Valhalla in Video Games

Feb 13, 2021  
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
2020 | Action/Adventure, Role-Playing
Gameplay (4 more)
Ideas
Easter Eggs
Mysteries
Characters
Mini-Arcs (3 more)
Repetitive
Dull ending
Bugs
Repetitive, and a disappointing end to the trilogy.
After getting my hopes up, and initially thoroughly enjoying it, what an absolute stinker this game has turned out to be.

It could have been a great game, but the story, inside and out of the animus, has really let it down.

Firstly, the gameplay is fun, archery, swinging away with axes, beheading everyone in sight, and the mysteries, the new side missions, are an excellent addition, very fun with a great variety, and contain some great little pop cultures references and Easter eggs. The characters are also great, and probably some of the most memorable.

But now the negatives. The first, and for most a deal-breaker, the story. The story is made up of mini-arcs, which all involve gaining allies for your settlement. These tend to be very repetitive in most cases. But of course there are the two main arcs, Eivor's arc, and Layla's arc, the star of the previous two games.

Eivor's arc while very typical, has some really interesting ideas that will blow you away. But don't get too excited, we have no DLC yet, but so far all these awesome ideas and revelations seem to have been forgotten about by the end of the game. The end of his main arc is incredibly dull and predictable.

Layla's arc, unfortunately, while having a good twist, still remains dull, predictable, and comes to a dull, unsatisfactory ending that could have been (and probably was) written in a lunch break.

Finally, the bugs. From day one, this game has had quite a few bugs, ranging from fatal bugs resulting in lost game progress, and preventing the story from progressing, and minor things like being stuck in walls and on viewpoints, horses running out of control (while riding), and being permanently, totally drunk.

Overall, a huge disappointment.