Review of Ready Player One (2018) by Sam R — 05 Apr 2018

This review is full of spoilers. You have been warned.

We all remember that amazing feeling. We get home from school, run into the living room, boot up our console and wait for our favorite game to load. As it turns on, we get ready to battle, and the game lets us know it's time as those familiar words flash before our eyes: "Ready Player One.".

You would think a movie that was called "Ready Player One" would at least include those beautiful words the very first time our protagonist, Wade Watts, logs into the Oasis, right?

Well, not so much.

In a movie literally called Ready Player One, there wasn't much emphasis on actual gaming. This is the very first place where this movie goes so terribly wrong.

Alright, but let's back up a bit.

Ready Player One is based on the best-selling Ernest Cline novel of the same name. This dystopian book is set in a post-apocalyptic America in the not so distant future. The basic background we get at the beginning of the book is that our world has gone to shit. In the year 2044 the world has been facing an energy crisis for decades that was caused by global warming, overpopulation, and the depletion of fossil fuels. Basically, the world was destroyed by...humans. Rather than doing something to fix the problems they caused, humans escaped into a world of virtual reality, and began to live, work, and even get married to people they have never actually met, all inside the MMORPG called, The OASIS.

The world is going to hell, but the OASIS is actually fairly stable. The OASIS has its own government, where Wil Wheaten is President, and the OASIS currency is actually much stronger than any you could get in real life.

However, things get interesting when James Halliday, the reclusive creator of the Oasis dies, leaving behind no heir to inherit his vast fortune, and control of his company and all of the OASIS. So, Halliday leaves behind an Easter Egg in his game. Anyone who finds it, will win his entire estate, and the right to run the OASIS.

The problem is, the company IOI is after the OASIS for profit. Nolan Sorrento, IOI's CEO, wants to make players charge for the right to access the OASIS. Since the world has basically been destroyed and a very small percentage of people control the world's tangible wealth, the only good thing most people have in their lives is the OASIS.

Okay, so why I am giving you this vast background on the book? It's to highlight one of the biggest problems in the film adaptation of the novel. THERE ARE STAKES. The action of this story is fueled by the fact that if IOI gains control of the OASIS there will be no more reason for most of the world's population to even want to keep living. Most people work inside the Oasis, so if they have to pay a monthly fee just to get to work, what chance do they ever have of getting ahead? In the book, most people are starving because there is literally not enough food left on earth.

This novel is brilliant, but I obviously knew there was absolutely NO WAY this movie would be able to replicate the epic quest laid out in the books pages, but I had really hoped that the spirit of the story would remain intact.

In fact, I couldn't find anything in this movie that reminded me of the source material.

There are serious spoilers ahead, so continue reading with caution.

In the book, it was important to Halliday that a student find the first key. He wanted a regular person to begin this journey, so to start the movie with Wade already being this amazing Gunter, with amazing weapons, and a freaking DeLorean immediately made me feel like I wasn't connected to his character. He was clearly not a regular guy. Also, making Wade, Aech, and Art3mis go to school adds that human element that is missing from the film.

People still have to have lives. They have to go to school or work. I mean yes, they go to school in the OASIS, fine. But they still have the expectation to do the boring monotonous things in life. It would have made the movie feel more real. It also, again, would have added additional stakes. "I can't find the egg and save the OASIS from IOI until I finish school, otherwise I'll get kicked out of school and lose my internet access, gloves, and goggles to access the OASIS.".

Also, I felt cheated that the movie picked up in the middle of the hunt. They dismissed whoever it was that figured out the first clue was a race...except.... how did they figure it out? It made NO sense that it would be a race based on Halliday's first clue, and it felt like cheating to skip over that.

Then there is the fact that the spirit of the quest was completely altered in this adaptation. The quest itself should have felt like an adventure, but it was just a series of random events that led to a key. I mean, I obviously wanted to see Parzival Joust for the key against Acererak - but if that wasn't possible in the movie for whatever reason couldn't we have at least flavored the challenge to be similar? Spielburg used a flashy car chase because he wanted to be flashy. It wasn't about storytelling, it was about special effects.

The quest for each key felt so lazy and figuring out the challenge was so easy for everyone that once again, there were no stakes. I get it, it was a race to beat IOI, but it should have been about so much more.

In the book, IOI has castle Anorak encased in the Orb of Osuvox for like a month while the other Gunters hurried to figure out the last clue and catch up, but Sorrento and his band of Sixers (Suxors, as the book called them which would have made for an entertaining addition to this movie) couldn't figure out how to use the key and get past the gate because it never occurred to people so greedy to work together. IOI only used the Cataclyst to blow up the planet after Parzival and his friends showed them how to open the gate. I mean, that's an actual reason why IOI would destroy so many of its own Avatars. It wasn't just because Sorerento was throwing a hissy fit. That's also high stakes. IOI had a month, alone with the key and they couldn't figure it out.

Let's address some other issues with the movie. Firstly, how the hell was it so damn easy for everyone to find each other? Daito and Shoto are in Japan in the book, which gives a broader scope to the story. This isn't a book about America, it's a book about the world.

Also, Wade would have NEVER just told all of his friends how to find the first key. It's so dumb that the movie copped out like that. It goes against everything his character stood for, which is why it made more sense that Daito and Shoto don't meet Parzival, Art3mis, and Aech until after they find the key for themselves. This is where the movie continues to lack a human connection. Life just doesn't work this way. People don't all just magically find each other, and the entire freaking world is not based in Ohio. It's just...ugh.

Let's get to Arti for a minute. In the books, saving the OASIS is the most important thing there is. She kind of hates that Z just wants to take the money and run. She wants to save the OASIS so she can use the money, the power, and the resources to save the world. She wants to feed people, get them into safe housing, and clean up the streets. She fights off Wade's attraction because she cannot afford to get sidetracked. Even at the end, when they are in the same house, she refuses to meet him in person until one of them has the egg. It's too important to let her emotions compromise what she views as the fate of the planet.

That's a great character. She is driven, smart, complex, scared...she is real.

Arti in the movie is flat. She dumps Z, but then...just kidding, "I was really just coming to find you all along." The fact that they meet so early in the movie takes away something so beautiful. It takes away the longing, the fight for their relationship, and the eventual terror he feels when he finds out her life is in danger.

Also, that whole, "I'm gonna fall on my own sword and be captured because you are the only one who can save the Oasis" shit she pulls in the movie is so dumb. She would have been like, "try to keep up, fool.".

And why does EVERYONE just bow down to Wade and act like he is the only one who can win for the entire movie? I mean, racing against the Sixers is good, but why can't you also be racing against each other? It just would have made a much more interesting story.

Getting back to my argument that there were no stakes in this movie, let's talk about Daito for a moment. His death in the book changes the entire dynamic of the hunt, and the race to beat the sixers. Daito dies, IRL, at the hands of IOI and that changes everything. I mean, we already knew Sorrento was capable of this, but for him to actually murder a member of the High Five is a wakeup call. It changes the way Wade views the entire quest and is probably what makes him allow himself to get arrested by IOI (under a fake name) and use his resources as an "employee" (with the help of some sweet hacker backdoor codes) to take down the Orb protecting Castle Anorak.

Speaking of which, how the hell was it so easy to get out of IOI? I mean, Arti got her detector and alarm off easily enough...fine. Let's ignore that. But then she breaks into Sorrento's office unnoticed, gets out just as easily, then goes into the IOI war room, kills other sixers USING A SIXER AVATAR, and nobody thinks to take off their damn helmet and find the Sixer who is killing them all? Also, literally everyone is looking for her and they don't realize she is still inside IOI headquarters. You got drones that can find a dude with a face tattoo in five minutes, but you don't have security cameras in your headquarters? Seriously?

Also, she is in a Sixer Suit, using a Sixer account, wearing a Sixer uniform. So how do we see her inside the Oasis as her own avatar. That is ridiculous.

This is where I will address the movie fails in even following its own rules. Early on, it is established that to run and move your own body in the Oasis, you need a Haptic Suit. So how the hell are people just running around in the streets in Cleveland, wearing regular clothes, but still somehow shooting at everyone in the Battle for Castle Anorak? It makes no sense.

Also, I challenge you to run around a busy street, with your eyes covered, pretending to be battling someone, and not get yourself run over by a bus. This is not real life, people.

I think the actors were fine. They seemed well cast and may have been good if they had been given better writing. I mean, come on with this one. "I won't be like Halliday. I'll jump." Wade says, as he kisses, Samantha.

I mean...really? That's the best you have. My friend groaned out loud in the theater with that one.

The actor who played Halliday did a nice job, and so props to him, but Simon Pegg was painfully under utilized as Ogdon Morrow. I think I would have given the entire movie a break if they had allowed him to be the one who saves Z and Arti in the nightclub by using his overly strong, immortal OASIS avatar, "The Great and Powerful Og." That scene in the book was amazing and was 100% the reason why I was excited about Pegg's casting in this film. Also, I liked that it was Og who got the kids to safety in the end. He was so disgusted at the evil way IOI was twisting Halladay's challenge, that though he wouldn't interfere with the game, he also wouldn't let the kids get murdered.

Stakes. We keep coming back to that.

I wanted to like this film. I really really wanted to, but in the end, I didn't enjoy it at all. It focused 100% on special effects and failed where movies matter most: In the telling of a story and creation of characters the audience actually cares about.