Warner Bros. Pictures
It’s been quite some time since Steven Spielberg directed a full out science fiction, special effects extravaganza — and for fully realized futuristic worlds, you have to go all the way back to his one-two punch of A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) and Minority Report (2002) — but he’s returned in full force with Ready Player One which also benefits from his experience as executive producer of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Ready Player One is based on the popular novel of the same name by Ernest Cline. The film is set one year later than the book, in 2045, but both focus on the story’s young protagonist, Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), resident of The Stacks in Columbus, Ohio (relocated from the novel’s Oklahoma City), a neighborhood of mobile homes stacked one on top of the other because in this overpopulated world, the only way to go is up. But in this world of pollution, corruption and climate change and little to offer its inhabitants, most of the population finds respite in the OASIS, a virtual world created by James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and his ex-partner Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg). In the OASIS, anyone can be anyone or anything they choose (which gives Spielberg the chance to indulge in a plethora of pop culture references and characters much as Roger Rabbit brought together a stable of famous cartoon characters from different studios), travel to different worlds, play games and collect coins, and just escape reality.
But news of Halliday’s death brings a whole new angle to the OASIS — Halliday has hidden three magical keys within the entire OASIS world. They’re not just laying around, they are embedded somewhere in the vast virtual reality. The person who finds the three keys will win complete ownership of the OASIS. Wade, as his avatar Parzival, teams up with his virtual friends Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), Aech (Lena Waithe), Daito (Win Morisaki) and Sho (Philip Zhao) to try to solve Halliday’s riddles and find the keys before the nefarious IOI corporation, led by Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), find them and turn the OASIS into a corporate, profit-driven entity.
Ready Player One is a visually dazzling movie that crams so much information into a frame that it’s true sensory overload (and the movie should be seen on a huge screen with the benefit of 3D and a good sound system because our preview presentation was sorely lacking the visual and aural punch this film demands). The number of cultural references contained in the film is astounding with a multitude of characters and objects that haven’t been collected on screen together since The LEGO Movie, everything from the classic TV Batmobile to Marvin the Martian to the killer Chucky doll … probably any character you can imagine is hidden somewhere in this movie. And audiences go wild when one of Parzival’s team chooses a new avatar based on a popular anime series (and if you don’t know yet, we won’t spoil it for you). And in addition, Spielberg has included an amazing collection of 70s and 80s music to accompany the visuals from New Order to the Bee Gees to Prince to earth, Wind and Fire. It’s a great soundtrack similar to what James Gunn did with the music for Guardians of the Galaxy.
Spielberg deftly works within both the real and virtual worlds sometimes combining elements of both, particularly when Parzival is in the OASIS memory bank to try and suss out clues from important moments in Halliday’s life. The young cast are all excellent having to give life to their human characters and their animated counterpoints (achieved, I assume, through motion capture). Each of the actors makes you care for both of their characters, getting emotionally invested in their lives in and out of the OASIS. Mendelsohn is fine as the corporate villain, but Mark Rylance once again hits it out of the park in his small role. He was outstanding in Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (good enough to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar), and he was the true heart and soul of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Rylance, even in a goofy wig, can do wonders with his facial expressions, vocal inflections and body language. The man is a marvel.
Although I am not a gamer by any means, Ready Player One was still a mind-blowing experience and I’m sure anyone who plays a lot of video games, or who is at least familiar with video games from the first Atari games to today’s VR platforms, will find much to enjoy about the movie. It’s a good story with an interesting premise that allows you to try to figure out the clues along with Parzival and his group, and you will be rooting for them all to succeed. Even if you’re not into gaming, there is still plenty here to keep you entertained. So take a couple of hours to put down the joysticks, the game controllers, the VR gear and escape to the world of the OASIS.
Ready Player One has a run time of 2 hours 20 minutes and is rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, partial nudity and language.
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