I haven't much stomach for Spielberg's racial taunts

Rating: 8/10 (31 March 2018)

Normally I wouldn't stay for a movie featuring two Asians, two Anglos, and a Black (I would have made at least the Sho character a young Latino) but this movie has a lot going for it despite its desire to create certain racial icons. The ideas in play here are worth seeing expressed and what live action there is is done well. I particularly enjoyed Ben Mendelsohn's bad guy though the rest of the cast does an admirable job too.
There's a kind of overblown land of inequality envisioned; the hero lives in a trailer park where space is so dear, the homes are stacked one on another, at least five high. Gaming is everyone's distraction because life is hard for those who aren't rich. Most of the action takes place in a virtual world called OASIS that is everyone's favorite hangout because you can be and do whatever you like. The hero fights a soulless corporation there for control of it, and it's a clever and moderately attractive world to visit, but difficult to believe any adult would want to live there for any length of time.
Spielberg seems to want to describe a world where race is no longer important, and yet there isn't a single Latino that I could find. That's a consistent shortcoming across many artistic forms and it's difficult to dismiss it.