Imaginative and fun

Rating: 9/10 (31 August 2018)

I hadn't read the book going into the movie, so I had absolutely no preconceived ideas of what I wanted it to be. From watching the trailers, all I knew is it would be pop-culture filled, and hopefully an exciting tribute to everything relating to video games and film from the 80's. Walking away from the film, I can only say good things about it. Sure there are some issues (Parzival being more interesting than Wade himself, disconnections from the book, a utopian visualization of an online gaming world, and an unrealized real-world), but none of those took away from all the things the film did right.
I'd like to nickname this movie the better Spy Kids 3D that I never knew I wanted. Spy Kids 3D is one of my favorite childhood movies, not because it can be critically praised even to the slightest, but because it was simply entertaining to watch as a kid. It had giant robots, futuristic car/bike races, a seemingly endless gaming world that sparked your imagination, and a prize for the one who reaches the final level. Those aspects of a movie were enough to keep me happy then, and they sure as heck keep me happy now when done at a much higher quality.
Though the overarching plot was simple and mildly cliche, one can't say it didn't have them wanting to be a part of it. As a gamer, the idea of corporations abusing control of the largest gaming mediums and shoving ads and micro-transactions in our faces is downright scary, and quite frankly already happening to some extent (especially on mobile devices). So just for that, I found myself interested. To add to that though, the idea of an extremely well hidden literal easter egg that gave the finder control of the entire Oasis kept me feeling like I could relate to the cast of characters.
As fun as the film was though, there was an underlying lesson to be learned that, though subtle and vaguely explained, I can sincerely appreciate. No, it wasn't just , "Don't play too much video games kids, go outside every once in a while." I'd like to believe it was much deeper than that. The average person in the world of Ready Player One was struggling with more than a video game addiction. They were struggling with an identity crisis, completely losing who they are as people. Everyone in the main cast of characters had this issue to some extent, and you could see how it was allowing them to lose who they were in the real world. At the end of the film, the Oasis goes full-circle when the easter egg teleports Parzival to an Oasisized version of Halliday's childhood room. It's here where Halliday makes some quircky comments/gestures about how video games were an escape for him. He didn't really care about the Oasis and the easter egg as much as everyone wanted to believe. It was simply a way for him to escape from some of his embarrassments and failures in the real world. Halliday was the creator of a virtual universe that the entire world would lose themselves in, that ironically only he himself saw beyond.