Spielberg + Virtual Reality = READY PLAYER ONE

Rating: 10/10 (6 April 2018)

After the huge artistic and commercial success of his 1993 Holocaust epic SCHINDLER'S LIST, director Steven Spielberg may not have totally abandoned the style of action/adventure films he had initiated back in 1981 with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but he was determined to balance both commercial properties with riskier artistic projects, a trend that has been quite successful for him, right into the 21st century. Films like AMISTAD, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, MUNICH, BRIDGE OF SPIES, and THE POST have balanced themselves alongside more crowd-pleasing fare as THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, and THE BFG. And then in 2018, he came up with his most audacious project to date, the futuristic virtual reality action/adventure opus READY PLAYER ONE.
Based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Cline (he also co-wrote the screenplay, with Zach Penn), and set in the year 2045, the film stars Tye Sheridan as something of a techno-geek whose only solace from his bleak "real world" existence is in the futuristic virtual reality world known as The Oasis; and he is by no means alone. The Oasis is a place created by an eccentric video genius named James Halliday (Mark Rylance, who won a Best Supporting Actor in 2015 for BRIDGE OF SPIES) and another man named Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg); and just before Rylance passes away, he offers ownership of the Oasis and a mammoth sum of "coin" ($250 billion, to be exact) if the right contestant can find the "Easter egg" hidden inside the world of the Oasis. Sheridan takes up the challenge, along with Olivia Cooke, and three other players he calls the "Hi Five" to get the three keys that will unlock the clues that eventually lead to Rylance's quarter-trillion dollar Easter egg. But in the meantime, they must battle an underhanded corporate tycoon (Ben Mendelsohn) who is equally anxious to get his hands on that Easter egg. In between the cross-cutting from the "real" reality to the "virtual" reality, Sheridan, Cooke, and company go on a huge, visually mind-busting sequence of adventures in the Oasis relating to examples of American pop culture from the late 1970s into the 21st century, including references to KING KONG, GODZILLA, the first two BACK TO THE FUTURE films (both of which Spielberg was executive producer on), A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and, even more shockingly (not to mention amusingly), THE SHINING.
It has to be said that a film of this sort, being helmed even by a director known for frequent sensory impacts (including the "Indiana Jones" films and the first two JURASSIC PARK projects), can seem a bit much; and indeed, READY PLAYER ONE is a bit like the ultimate in sensory overload. Sound-wise, READY PLAYER ONE may very well be the loudest film Spielberg has directed since the 1979 World War II comedy "1941", whose loud explosions, raucous dogfights, and insane mugging by the actors totally drowned out whatever comedy Spielberg might have indeed for that film. The earlier film was also the first instance of Spielberg playing homage to himself (references to DUEL and JAWS were there in "1941"); and apart from the occasional JURASSIC PARK and BACK TO THE FUTURE references, Spielberg stays away from those here (though Cline was known to be a huge Spielberg admirer). Instead, he chooses to highlight other aspects of 1980s culture (along with the Alan Silvestri score that sounds a fair amount like what he did for the BACK TO THE FUTURE series). The most prominent 1980s homage is to THE SHINING, notably its virtual reality recreation of that film's sinister Overlook Hotel and scenes like the horrific hag in Room 237 and the tsunami of blood.
Spielberg actually had READY PLAYER ONE finished in the spring of 2017, intending it for a Christmas 2017 release; but once STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI was set for release, he held off until the Easter weekend of 2018, and instead polished off (with seemingly little haste) THE POST. The re-juggling clearly didn't affect the quality of this film (or THE POST, for that matter); and while READY PLAYER ONE can be faulted at times for its emphasis on sound and spectacle (a rare thing for Spielberg, but an all-too-frequent thing for a lot of other 21st century Hollywood blockbusters), it has to be said that Sheridan and Cooke make an appealing young couple; and Rylance turns in another fine performance as the eccentric video game genius. In the end, READY PLAYER ONE is a rarity in Hollywood, in that it's a blockbuster that requires a lot of concentration. But Spielberg, it seems, wouldn't have had it any other way.