As Mugatu in Zoolander would say... "The 80's are so hot right now." From the runaway success of Stranger Things to the recent return of sitcom titan Roseanne, the decade of Ronald Reagan is very much in demand. So it's almost appropriate that 1980's titan, Steven Spielberg, is directing the film adaption of Ready Player One. He delivered some of the biggest hits of that decade, and for better or worse, created the blockbuster genre.
Ready Player One tells the story of 2040's America, where the major world currency is the virtual reality universe called The Oasis. The Oasis is a place where anything can happen (as is told to the audience through our protagonist Wade Watts), and imagination is key. If you can think it, you can do it. It's the only place where people can escape from their crappy lives and dire living situations. The creator of The Oasis (played by recent Spielberg muse, Mark Rylance) has died, but before he died he created a contest that would give full ownership of The Oasis to the winner. Three keys were hidden deep within The Oasis and can only be unlocked by completing the tasks attached to them. These keys were so hard to find that most people have given up trying to find them. A small group of Gunters (short for Easter egg hunters) continue the search along with the evil IOI corporation, who seek to monetize The Oasis. The group of Gunters are led by Parzival (The avatar name of the lead character), and have essentially formed a resistance group to fight against the IOI corporation.
This film strips away a lot of the social commentary from the book and gets the audience straight into the chase, and the results are a thrilling albeit slightly flawed film. There are some genuinely exciting sequences (the street race in particular) with incredible visual effects. Spielberg does his best to film an unfilmable book, resulting in a piece of pure popcorn movie fun. He had to switch some things from the book, but the sequences he changed totally work (there's a sequence involving a horror classic that is hands down the best part of the entire movie.). Ready Player One was pure escapist fun, and I had a great time sitting through it.
That being said, I feel like there was a better movie buried in there. The horror movie sequence gave us a glimpse of its great potential. There was also a tacked on ending that tried to make a statement about disconnecting from our electronic devices that felt forced. Had Spielberg tried to establish that earlier, it would have been a more effective ending. In a movie about people escaping their daily lives and living vicariously through their digital avatars, I couldn't help but think that Spielberg was playing a role in his direction. This film felt like a Michael Bay film with better characters and direction. Some of the sequences were so frenetic that I had a hard time focusing on what was on screen. The third act, like a lot of modern action films, dragged a bit.
I'm giving Ready Player One 2.75 stars out of 4. It's a good movie that had the potential of being great. I'd recommend it to anyone hoping to escape to the movies for 2+ hours.
On a final note, there's a lot of pop culture Easter eggs sprinkled throughout. Some are obvious (Jurassic Park & King Kong), but others (Robocop, Street Fighter and countless others) appear in a blink and you'll miss it sense. I spent the first quarter of the movie trying to find them all, and I found it distracting to the story. I'd recommend just focusing on the story and letting the Easter Eggs happen naturally. I also wonder if younger audiences will get half of these pop culture references since the 80s happened 30+ years ago. The 80's are so hot right now, so your guess is as good as mine.
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