Review of Ready Player One (2018) by Shanya B — 30 Apr 2018

After just releasing "The Post" back in December, Steven Spielberg takes a slightly drastic twist on releasing the futuristic, video game fanatic film that is "Ready Player One" just a few months after. Based off the 2011 novel by Ernest Cline, also named "Ready Player One", Spielberg follows the same elements as the novel, capturing several of the pop culture references that made Cline's novel so popular in the first place. "Ready Player One" is a movie that is an overall celebration of past movies, video games, and music from several generations, dating all the way back the early 70s when arcade games like Antari first made an appearance. If you grew up in the 80s, this films gives plenty of nostalgia with a soundtrack completely comprised of those hair band days, throwing Van Halen, Duran Duran and Rush into the mix just to name a few.

Although set in 2045, after the planet goes through a "cough syrup drought" and is completely altered in its nature to look more like a complete junkyard, the futuristic time period has no relevance as the setting is utterly set in the 80s. Movie-goers almost need to see the movie twice to capture and recognize all the big screen references. Movies like "Iron Giant", "King Kong", "Back to The Future" and much to my frightened childhood, "Child's Play" come to show early on, although a large majority of well-known films are tossed in towards the end of the film. Spielberg also references his own past films like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Jurassic Park". While movie references are at large in this film, the theme is still surrounded around video games and screenplay writers Cline and Zak Penn do not lack to forget the cult classics in the video game world. Works such as "Halo", "Mortal Kombat", and "Borderlands" are all glimpsed throughout.

Beginning with a narration by the main character, Wade Watts, or also known by his gamertag Parzival (played by Tye Sheridan), we are shown a look of what the planet has become - almost a dumping grounds of metal and steel stacked on top of one another, but the real world is forgotten, replaced by an entertainment, virtual simulation called the OASIS. Wade lives with his aunt and her loser boyfriend who both care more about the virtual world than they do of Wade. The main motive of everyone playing the OASIS is to solve a treasure hunt of mysteries that was left behind by the game's creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who distinctly reminds me of Garth from the 1992 film Wayne's World. The "bad guy" of the film is quickly introduced as Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the CEO of a company that wants to solve Halliday's mysteries in order to win the rights to the OASIS to sell ads. Although in a simulation, the movie is clearly set up as more of a typical superhero movie where the main character with his gang of sidekicks fights the common enemy, but it does pack a creative punch.

One of the truly greatest references this film makes is its rendition of "The Shining", so much that it almost feels like a different movie. While I have no idea of Spielberg gain permission for such a tyrannical intrusion, the entire scene gives moviegoers complete flashbacks by transporting the movie's characters through scenes of the 1980's horror film in order to receive the next clue to solving Halliday's treasure hunt.

If there is any special nod I give to Spielberg for this film, it is to the amount of time he must've spent gaining permission to give his own twists on all the pop culture references because I promise you, there's a lot. While you're still reminiscing on a reference from your past, "Ready Player One" hits you with another three seconds later, and it is an ongoing sequence throughout.

Overall, would I say the film is one of Spielberg's best? Probably not. Those belong to Schindler's List and E.T. Terrestrial. Is it one of his best creatively? I might say so. "Ready Player One" definitely plays on the fanboy factor and offers something for everyone to enjoy.

Ready Player One.

GRADE: A.

Rated PG-13: for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, partial nudity and language.

Running Time: 140 minutes.