Ready Player One Review

PG-13: Sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, partial nudity and language

Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Amblin Partners, De Line Pictures

2 Hr and 20 Minutes

Dir: Steven Spielberg | Writers: Zak Penn, Ernest Cline

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance

In the year 2045, the real world is a harsh place. The only time Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) truly feels alive is when he escapes to the OASIS, an immersive virtual universe where most of humanity spends their days. In the OASIS, you can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone - the only limits are your own imagination. The OASIS was created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who left his immense fortune and total control of the Oasis to the winner of a three-part contest he designed to find a worthy heir. When Wade conquers the first challenge of the reality-bending treasure hunt, he and his friends-aka the High Five-are hurled into a fantastical universe of discovery and danger to save the OASIS.

THE GOOD

You thought Warner Bros stopped showcasing their catalog of properties in “The LEGO Movie” & “The LEGO Batman Movie”? Boy, that was just the beginning. Nearly every film and video game property that Warner Bros owns appears in “Ready Player One”. Every horror film icon, blockbuster icon, and, especially, video game character that WB has the legal rights to make an appearance. But then, on the same level as “Wreck It Ralph”, you see plenty of other characters and icons that you’re familiar with popping up as cameos. Instead of it being so in-your-face, they’re in the background with something to do but surprise you in a way that triggers your nostalgia.

This movie is the closest thing you’ll get to a MUGEN adaptation if I’ve ever seen one because, instead only putting several pop culture characters in here, they brought EVERYTHING! From movies, anime, manga, TV, and video games, the film embraces the lore of pop culture and presents it to you in in the best way possible. “Ready Player One” is a huge love letter to the 80s from the gaming, music, and movies. Adam Sandler is currently beating himself up as we speak for fucking up “Pixels” so bad.

The film starts off with an awesome race sequence that has you at the edge of your seat with your eyes glued to the screen like a kid at a candy store. The sequence is such a splendor to look at that it makes you go, “‘Spy Kids 3: Game Over’ eat your fucking heart out.” The racing sequence takes textures and architecture from New York City as the map in our world of this race. One of the biggest times I geeked out was seeing the Silvercup Studios building in the background while cars are driving on an outside railroad. I’m a New Yorker so seeing that really got me excited more than anything else.

The film gives you two options: either be a cynical asshole and scoff at all the 80s references or shut up and squeal with every geeky reference it throws at you and accept it like the millennial that you are. “Ready Player One” is literally every millennial’s wet dream and they will eat this shit up. Though at times it gets a bit too meta or misses the opportunity to go that route -- mainly because the film is a love letter to the 80s. No Spielberg 80s movies are referenced at all and even little teases that should prelude to very meta references to Spielberg’s earlier works or other adaptations of it are never referenced. In other words, SPIELBERG HAD THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO ADMIT HOW TERRIBLE THE E.T. GAME ADAPTATION WAS AND HE DIDN’T TAKE IT! An Atari 2600 game is literally one of the key challenges in the film and Spielberg didn’t want to reference the E.T. game which is claimed to be one of the worst video games of all time?!

To see this written world of Cline’s OASIS come to life is amazing. Whenever the film focuses on the OASIS, which is the primary reason you’re going to see this movie anyway, the film shines. The OASIS is such a spectacular, visual splendor to look at that you’re immediately immersed into the world. It has the “Wakanda effect” where this fictional world has so much imagination and clever ideas flowing like a systematic community that you wish it was real so you could live there (or at least visit).

Besides the production design of the OASIS and the effects used for the characters that pop up, the movie also delivers with the motion capture. The motion capture utilized here is incredible in the same vein as “The Adventures of Tintin” was; not only can you tell how virtual these people are, but they’re also well-designed. Each lead’s virtual avatar embodies some sort of facial resemblance to their real life counterpart so you can easily distinguish which character is who. Granted, some of the designs bizarrely reminded me of Besson’s “Arthur and The Invisibles” but that's neither here nor there.

A lot of the characters are way more fun in the virtual world than their real life personalities. Wade’s avatar, Parzival, is cool in the OASIS, and so is Art3mis. Yet, my favorite characters came from people who I wouldn’t expect, such as Lena Waithe as Aech; she is the comic relief but also a badass mechanic who creates classic vehicles in her garage. T.J. Miller was another character I liked where, for once, he’s not playing an obnoxious caricature of himself. He’s actually really toned down in this as a Warlock who is physically threatening, but his dialogue voice is still T.J. Miller which cracked me up a numerous amount of times.

THE BAD

As fun as the film is, you get a bit fatigued by the running time. The film is two hours and twenty minutes and is very fast paced for the most part, but by the third act the film takes a major drag. After a huge battle sequence towards the third act where all of the VFX comes into play and jacks off your geekiness until you finish, the movie keeps going and going and never seems to end. It is the equivalent of eating a ton of candy until you’re overstuffed, and then being forced to eat more.

Now, when we are out of the OASIS and focus on Wade in the real world, the film tends to fall apart. Everything that goes on outside this virtual world is flat and dull and it feels like a checklist of every Spielberg trope in the book. Wade isn’t much of an interesting character when he’s outside of the virtual world where his personality falls into the “shy, awkward nerd” category. He is pretty much that guy who keeps to himself, but when he gets online he’s the biggest hotshot there is (which is nearly every video gamer when you get down to it).

So, the OASIS is supposed to be this expanded world where every character can come from anywhere. Yet, somehow, when Wade meets his best friends from the OASIS in the real world, they all reside in the same city he’s in. Apparently, in the book it is explained how everyone is able to travel to Wade and help him, but this movie is so rushed in story that you question how everyone is miraculously within a 10 mile radius of each other. The performances aren’t terrible, but when it comes to a name like Spielberg, you expect everyone to bring their A-game. Unfortunately, it felt like he was only invested in the filmmaking process that involved the virtual world, but when it came to shooting live-action scenes he went “Ehhhhhh, whatever.”

I’m tired of the lazy biopic Spielberg where his features are nothing but cheap Oscar bait because of his name. Then, when it comes to his family features they’re just so damn dull. Even till this day I will admit the only movie I’ve ever walked out of was Spielberg’s “The BFG”. I was so bored that I was THIS close to taking a nap. “Ready Player One” is Spielberg in his prime where he takes the wonder of being a child and puts it as a forefront in the film. He gets in touch with your imagination on a huge nostalgia trip that you haven’t geeked over so much since “Stranger Things”. The only issue I have with this being a Spielberg film that feels like an 80s movie is the stupid tropes that we’ve been getting oversaturated by, such as the outcast kid who is bullied by parental figures or adults…or the kids rising up against corporate assholes to save something they love. Sound familiar?

Another huge issue that I have with the movie is, surprisingly, Alan Silvestri’s score. If you don’t know Alan Silvestri, you might recognize his iconic scores for films such as “Back to the Future”. Now, if you pay attention to how a lot of his music sounds, you get a clear sense that he lives for expressing whimsy with his pieces. Here, his whimsical ass goes right off the rails and dives headfirst into something that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the movie at times. A good example would be the use of light trumpets blaring over scenes where characters are in pursuit. For a movie that’s centered on a video game world, it would’ve been beneficial if the score took  inspiration from 8-bit tunes and pieces from classic themes and used them as inspiration for the rest of the music. If you’re going to dive into full nostalgia, at least incorporate it into the music as well. The knockoff “Back to the Future” themes here by the guy who created the iconic themes from “Back to the Future” doesn’t really help express the right tone the film needs to have. That’s a key aspect that made me love films such as “Scott Pilgrim” and “Wreck It Ralph” so much; those movies went so deep into the lore they were inspired by that their scores and music emulated the video game aesthetic they were going for. Silvestri just fails to do that here.

LAST STATEMENT

“Ready Player One” may be heavily flawed in accounts of dimensional characters and weak storytelling that not even the 80s tropes they fall into can’t fix. But, Spielberg’s  direction where every scene is a wonderful visual spectacle with cool, imaginative sequences from beginning to end (when focused on the OASIS, which is 80% of the movie) makes it a hell of a great time in the theater that will unlock your childhood nostalgia. “Ready Player One” is definitely a film worthy of your quarters.

Rating: 4/5 | 81%

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