Ready Player One is the long-anticipated adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 geek bible. The book, a love letter to all things ’80s is filled to the brim with pop culture references; incorporating video games, movies, books, music and fashion. Steven Spielberg, a director who created memories for everyone living in the ’80s, takes on directing reins for Ready Player One, and films what I thought could only work on the page.
Ready Player One takes place in 2045. The world has deteriorated and reality has become a dreary place to reside. Fortunately for everyone, there is a virtual reality universe where everyone spends their time, called The Oasis. In this world, your avatar can live out every adventure, saga and love story.
The creator of this game, Halliday (Mark Rylance) has created a glorified scavenger hunt in the Oasis, promising that whoever finds his three keys will own everything in the Oasis. It’s at this point, we meet Wade (Tye Sheridan) who plays as Parzival in the game. He believes he has what it takes to complete the challenges. Along the way, he meets a strong ally in Samantha/Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) and several others. However, he also runs into a major obstacle, when Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the head of a major corporation, seeks to own the game and turn it into a corporate monopoly.
In order to appeal to a wider audience, the all-80s-all-the-time elements have been limited. Instead, Ready Player One is a love letter to pop culture of the last 40 years. Though, thankfully the fantastic new wave music is still a major part. This movie is a sensory overload in every way. It is bright, colorful, explosive, comical and rife with thousands of references. Honestly, the geek community will spend years breaking down every screenshot to discover every character, vehicle or image from their nostalgia-filled past.
It’s honestly a pleasure to hear different sections of the movie-going crowd respond to direct references to their own specific fandom. I know I smiled quite a bit at a few scenes, notably the second key challenge. For anyone hoping for a grounded movie, it’s probably best to avoid this one. All belief may be suspended when King Kong chases down everyone’s favorite DeLorean.
Yes, that’s a T-Rex chasing Bigfoot
There is a solid 40% of the movie that is CG, but you allow it because you are literally sucked into a video game. The human element is the reason why Spielberg was the right choice for the job. In the real world, these people don’t have abilities. They live in near poverty, all while being on the run from a malicious organization. Spielberg really shines when he focuses on the dynamic between any two characters. While Wade and Samantha are paper-thin characters, they work really well together.
There’s a plot within Ready Player One that I wanted to watch almost more than the movie I was watching. Mark Rylance’s soft-spoken socially-inept Halliday and Simon Pegg’s Ogden Morrow play out the inception of the game 20 years previous. I hated to see these “flashbacks” end. These two elevate the material above the often forceful pop culture cavity this movie becomes.
The adaptation of this material is a tricky thing. While the universe and general story from the novel are here, the way it plays out is radically different. The translation is far less clever, as little time is taken to explain the history of geek lore and old Atari games. However, the book’s author is a screenwriter and somehow made the experience more applicable to general movie audiences. Admittedly, a lot of the magic and stakes are removed for this simplified version, but it’s still a pop culture wonderland.
I’m a huge fan of the book, but seeing this different version of the story pulled the wool over my eyes and gave me the impression that it felt like an original type of blockbuster event. I typically hate the reliance on nostalgia and references (see also: Big Bang Theory, Family Guy, Stranger Things), and in time, I’ll probably hate this movie. However, Spielberg made something that I believed would be so incredibly tacky and gave it heart. I’m actually excited to see Ready Player One again. B+
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