Name: Ready Player One Review
Item: Ready Player One
Rating: 70
Author: @chekohler

Ready Player One sees a return of famed director and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. The film is based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name, which has become a worldwide phenomenon and when that happens Hollywood naturally looks to cash in on the hype!

The Plot

The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday.

When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger.

Ready Player One Trailer

Changes from the book

First things first, I need to address this since every movie based on a book goes through this from the purists, the movie isn't better than the book and its not supposed to be, it's adapting the content to a new format for more people to enjoy.

If you've read the book you'll see the changes are pretty obvious but they don't really spoil the movie for most of us. Many of them are vital in helping the content translates well on to screen.

For more on the changes check out these posts by Screen Rant and IGN

Visual effects

The visuals are pretty awesome in fact it's quite the visual spectacle that beats out plenty of the Marvel comic book movies and I would say competes with the likes of Avatar in terms of creativity and visual appeal.

There is no movie available today where you can see King Kong, Mecha Godzilla and the Iron Giant all duking it out in a crazy battle for the future of Oasis.

The cast

Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan (“X-Men: Apocalypse,” “Mud”), Olivia Cooke (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” “Bates Motel”), Ben Mendelsohn (“Rogue One – A Star Wars Story,” “Bloodline”) and T.J. Miller (“Deadpool,” “Silicon Valley”), with Simon Pegg (the “Star Trek” movies, the “Mission: Impossible” movies) and Oscar winner Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies,” upcoming “Dunkirk”).

I cannot really fault they cast with Tye Sheridan are Olivia Cooke being the standouts. While Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg offer fun in supporting roles.

Leans heavy on nostalgia

While it has its merits the movie will leave you empty in a sense and here's why. The movie should have been called 'The Pop-Culture Movie', since it is so chock-full of blatant references and call-backs to media, from the eighties and nineties in particular.

It seems as though this over-reliance on pre-existing material, along with its recognition and nostalgic value, is the driving force behind most of the narrative, being that the flick itself doesn't capture the spirit of the films it intends to ape, and so often calls out by name to cringe-worthy results, but instead shoves in reference after soulless reference in a vapid attempt to prey on its audience's ability to recognise things they've seen before.

This 'nostalgia vampirism' is meant to evoke memories of better films and have those emotions transposed onto this one, though it only succeeds in the former and reminds you how much you'd rather watch any of those than this.

It's evocative of the larger issues that plague the flick, those being that it doesn't have any real stakes or ability to engage on its own and also treats its audience as rather dumb and forces expository dialogue down their throats at every opportunity.

Easter eggs

Since the movie is based on the concept of Easter Eggs they didn't hold back on adding them. There are so many Easter eggs and references from pop culture it's unbelievable that they managed to add so many. It'll take a long time to spot them all.