Review of Ready Player One (2018) by Richard B — 12 Apr 2018
Spin Cycle Spielberg.
Watching RPO is like putting your head in a washing machine. It spins around, but you know it will all come out in the wash. It is an amazing follow up to The Post, having nothing in common with it on the surface. Underneath, both are Spielbeg movies.
That is, they are both about decency and human beings. In the Post, it is decency that drives Kay Graham and Ben Bradlee to publish the Pentagon Papers. In RPO, it is the decency of Wade and his friends to take down the evil corp Nolan Sorrento (every film's white male bad guy theses days Ben Mendelsohn).
The story is loaded - an autistic genius (Rylance) invents the ultimate VR game and everyone abandons real life to play it. He has 'died' and left a game to inherit his fortune and control of the game and the good guys (everyone other than evil corp) play the bad guys for the prize. The relevance to now is written in large letters and the script is written by the author of the source novel. it is visually superb and cluttered, but as usual, Spielberg places the characters and the story first, and the effects serve the story,.
This is great fun, not exactly my cup of tea, but yet another triumph for the 71 year old film maker. Not a world I want to live in, and I hope it doesn't come true.
This review of Ready Player One (2018) was written by Richard B on 12 Apr 2018.
Ready Player One has generally received positive reviews.
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