Master Auteur of Special Effects and Pop Culture also reveals obsession with futuristic virtual reality world too reminiscent of today's unhealthy fixation on video games

Rating: 6/10 (11 May 2018)

Steven Spielberg is fast becoming a connoisseur of the pyrrhic victory. In his previous missive, The Post, the Supreme Court rules in favor of the editor-in-chief along with the owner of the Washington Post, in their quest to have the Pentagon Papers published in spite of government opposition. Unfortunately, no one is held to account for the very crimes the Papers expose.

Similarly, here in Spielberg's latest, Ready Player One, his adolescent protagonist, Wade Watts (aka "Parzival"), triumphs over CEO Nolan Sorrento, head of Innovative Online Industries (IOI), who's been trying to gain control of the OASIS, a virtual reality world, created by the now deceased (Steve Jobs-like) James Halliday.

Even Spielberg concedes at film's end that maybe the OASIS is not such a good thing, when he has Watts (after gaining control of the OASIS), declare that the world is off limits on Tuesdays and Thursdays (teenage addiction to video games is indeed a big, big problem in our contemporary society).

There are some other problems with Ready Player One. Chief among them are the small stakes Watts and his buddies are fighting for. IOI simply wants to place ads for profit in the OASIS as opposed to blocking content which is a chief sticking point in the overall net neutrality debate.

It's a rather clever conceit that Watts and the vast majority of the denizens of a futuristic 2045 Columbus, Ohio, live in trailer homes stacked on top of one another (The "STACKS); but the urban area (controlled by IOI) is not as clever-in fact rather derivative as one is reminded of the run-down Detroit in the original Robocop.

And IOI's power in the real world is rather sketchily defined. The "Sixers" are debtors turned indentured servants coupled with researchers who are attempting to solve all the clues Halliday left in the OASIS to gain control of the virtual world. Sorrento and his minions will even go as far as blowing up Watts' aunt's STACKS residence (perhaps the most distasteful and out of place event in the film-designed to demonize the IOI crowd much more than they should be!).

When IOI does commit murder, where is law enforcement in all this? Presumably IOI controls them. But why is Sorrento so easily taken down by the police at film's end? Yes Wade's pal Aech sends the police the recording of Sorrento ordering the bombing; but again wouldn't the police be in Sorrento's pockets? They apparently have been looking the other way all this time in regards to the "Sixers," who are being used by the corporation for nefarious purposes. So if the police do have an "independent streak," that needs to be better defined.

Spielberg of course is on more solid ground in his mastery of special effects. The plot is divided into three parts, with Watts solving each aspect of Halliday's puzzle, obtaining three special keys that lead to the acquisition of the special Easter egg and ultimately a contract that gives him control of the OASIS.

In the first sequence, Watts' vehicle is blocked by King Kong who prevents all from encountering the wizard-looking Halliday who holds the first key. Watts finds an important clue in Halliday's archives, a virtual diary which Watts plays repeatedly until he uncovers the clue to finding the first key (the solution involves going "backward," instead of "forward).

In the second sequence, Watts becomes more involved with love interest Samantha Cook (the avatar Art3mis in the OASIS) and discovered that Halliday's main regret was that he never kissed Kira, on a movie date to a screening of Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining." Aficionados of that film will dig the references and attendant special effects but the closer parallel is to the Spielberg's executive-produced "Back to the Future."

In addition to actually working in a DeLorean during one of the action sequences, there is the whole idea of the equation of success with heterosexuality. That of course was the theme in Back to the Future where McFly Sr. "gets the girl." And Watts makes certain of not making Halliday's mistake, by kissing Samantha in the end. By the way, it's the holographic projection of Kira, who hands Watts the second key.

The third sequence (or Act III), gets a little convoluted especially when a series of plot twists prove rather far-fetched such as Samantha easily getting a hold of Sorrento's password into his station which allows Watts to recruit OASIS players to join in the all-out assault at the big fortress where the key to Halliday's puzzle awaits (Along with Samantha, he's aided by his online buddies, all whom just happen to live in close proximity to Watt's residence, in Columbus, Ohio).

There is a force field that must be neutralized and finally Watts is clever enough not to sign the contract (which was Halliday's big mistake, having dissolved a partnership with his long-term friend and business partner Morrow who shows up as the curator at Halliday's archives).

In addition to extracting solid performances from his actors (notably Tye Sheridan as Wade and Mark Rylance as Halliday), Spielberg remains the master of special effects and also of pop culture, as the film is chock full of references to music and film from the era of the auteur's younger days (80s music is particularly prominent here). It's a wild, entertaining ride (if that's your sort of thing) but also predictably inconsequential, given the trivial obsession with the virtual world-too reminiscent of today's unhealthy fixation on video games!