A fun, exciting, and relentless thrill ride

Rating: 8/10 (1 April 2018)

In a month full of disappointing movie releases that either didn't quite live up to expectations or were colossal failures, it's nice to see one that actually lives up to its high expectations. This comes in the form of "Ready Player One", a quintessential pop-culture movie based on the 2011 novel of the same name and directed by Steven Spielberg. The end product is an exciting, fun thrill ride that is easily the best movie this month.
"Ready Player One" is set in the year 2045 in a dystopian-like setting, where many major cities have become slums due to various issues, such as climate change and overpopulation. To escape from these issues, many people engage in the virtual reality world known as OASIS, which was developed by a man known as James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who passed away five years prior to the events of the film. Soon after his death, people discovered "Anorak's Quest", a game designed by Halliday in which a person must collect three keys to find an "Easter Egg", and the first person to obtain these three keys and find the hidden "Easter Egg" will be rewarded with fortune and other gifts. For the past five years, many people have tried to find the keys, but to no avail. So the story follows Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), an 18 year old boy who is obsessed with trying to find the secret to obtaining these keys to find the Easter Egg. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to complete the first challenge to obtain the first key, Wade turns to the OASIS virtual library in an attempt to find hints and clues to help him obtain these three keys. In doing so, he must also face the threat of the Innovative Online Industries company, who are also searching for the three keys to claim the prize. It's a completely unique and interesting story that is interesting enough to keep you engaged throughout the film, in large part due to it's solid pacing. After some exposition early on, the film jumps right into the action and never looks back. As a result, this is a movie with not much down time in it, which is a good thing for a popcorn movie like this in which its main objective is to keep you entertained, and it does just that far more often than it does not. The movie, for the most part, is constant action, especially in the second half. It's important to note that the film has a runtime of 2 hours and 20 minutes, which is on the longer side, and, because of its length, the constant action does get a bit tiring and monotonous after a while. It can be a bit too much at times.
Another flaw in the movie is its unfortunate lack of character depth. We're introduced to the characters briefly but there's no expansion on their backstory or anything like that. The only real exception to this is James Halliday, as we get an extensive backstory on him and his past. There's also not much character development, so it was hard to really get attached to these characters. The movie seems to be a lot more focused on action and keeping the plot moving, which is a shame because but it would have been even better if we had some more character depth. The human side of things that is usually present in Spielberg's films is mostly not here, unfortunately.
To compliment the action scenes, the visual effects and cinematography are outstanding. Every scene and animation in the OASIS looks beautiful to the point that it will often wow you. Any pop-culture geek will have a great time watching and taking note of the several different visual pop-culture references that are present in the OASIS. Even the scenes in the real world represent a realistic look of a futuristic and dystopian world. This is a movie that will surely be remembered come award season for any kind of visual effect and cinematography category.
All in all, despite a few flaws, Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One" is a good adaptation of the 2011 novel that accomplishes what it set out to do, and that is to provide a fun thrill ride of epic scale. Spielberg adds yet another epic adventure to his resume, one that ranks as the best movie of March and one of the best of the year so far.