An epic, nostalgic film filled to the brim with pop culture

Rating: 10/10 (12 April 2018)

Ready Player One is an epic, nostalgic film filled to the brim with pop culture references. It has characters you can really connect to and a digital world we all dream about. It has all sorts of exiting scenes such as races, puzzles, battles and so many others. This film is based on the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. They adapted the book very smoothly into film.
Ready Player One takes place in the year 2045. James Halliday creates the OASIS, a completely virtual world that everyone uses to escape their reality. After his death, a competition begins to find the Easter egg in the OASIS. Whoever finds the egg will have complete control over the OASIS. Wade and his friends try to win this competition and stop IOI from beating them for total control of the OASIS. It is filled with twists that make it hard to predict what will happen next even after reading the book.
I loved all the references in this film. Just to note some there was the Iron Giant, King Kong, Batman, The DeLorean and Martin the Martian. The special effects were also incredible. I really enjoyed the effect whenever someone changed their skin in the OASIS. I also enjoyed the mix between animated and live action characters. This is impressive because it's hard to make these two styles be near each other without one being out of place. I really liked how the world seemed like a fantasy people have today yet is also a dystopia at the same time.
My favorite part was the introduction to the OASIS. This scene was really impressive and had so much squeezed in. I also liked the scene were the common people attacked IOI. These scenes both showed a huge variety of different characters all from different parts of pop culture.
I enjoyed Mark Rylance's acting in this film. He filled the role of James Halliday brilliantly. He was very erratic yet sincere and made the character relatable even in extreme circumstances.
The song choices in this film were great. I particularly enjoyed the use of the original King Kong theme.
Overall, I give this film 5 out of 5 stars and strongly recommend it to anyone ages 7 through 18 because people under 7 wouldn't be entertained by all the references if they haven't experienced the things being referred to. I also believe adults will strongly enjoy it.
Reviewed by Rohan F., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic. For more reviews by youth, visit kidsfirst dot org.