#2,435: Love, Simon

Ready Player One - ★½☆☆☆
This is what you get when you make the whole movie out of the last act of Tomorrowland.

Credit where credit’s due, my audience loved the Shining references.

Pacific Rim: Uprising - ★★★☆☆
Pacific Rim 2 feels a bit like it maybe should have been a straight-to-video sequel, but it's fun, it knows what was good about the original (robot fights), and next to Ready Player One, it shines.

Much like the original, this movie is a thin connective web of scenes you'll skip past on netflix designed to vaguely justify a bunch of robot fights. See it if you’re into robot fights. Although, if not if you’re *too* into robot fights and going to end up complaining about something. If you're that guy, maybe give it a pass.

Love, Simon - ★★★★★
Man, this was great. We're still early enough in the year that pretty much everything that comes out is on the top ten list for the year, but for now this is topping the list.

I just like when a smaller (let's say under $200m) movie like this can come out and stand in contrast to the past few months of robot fights, and manage to do it with significantly deeper stakes and tension than something bland and abstract like the fate of the world. Best high school movie since Bad Genius, and a fun way to do a mystery.