Action Packed, Visually Inventive and a Beautiful Celebration of Pop Culture

Rating: 9/10 (1 April 2018)

Ready Player One is another in a long line of movies that's going to invite some strong opinions. Based on the best-selling novel by Ernest Cline, the movie isn't restricted by the source material and decides to go its own direction. I can hear people already getting upset but stay with me, what they decided to put on the screen is an actual improvement. Cline does a great job in the book in bringing in cryptic and familiar references alike, but you should be able to recognize all the major references in the movie. As someone who enjoyed the movie, I think its going to help the movie reach a bigger audience.
Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) is a protagonist that doesn't defy expectations but is familiar enough to be accessible. He's the underdog hero that's down on his luck, living in Columbus, Ohio in 2045. Wade is living in a trailer park where each unit form "stacks" to save space. As Wade tells us through the opening narration, reality became so bleak that the focus shifted from trying to solve the world's problems and instead trying to find ways to escape them. The OASIS became that escape, it's a huge virtual reality universe created by James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg) that allows you to experience anything. At the start, we see that James has passed away and has left his controlling interest in the OASIS up for grabs in the form of an Easter egg hunt. 3 challenges in which you win 3 keys, and no one has beat the first challenge yet. Wade and his friends Aech (Lena Waithe), Sho (Philip Zao) and Daito (Win Morisaki) compete for it fulltime and with the inclusion of Wade's crush Art3mis (Olivia Cooke). Standing in their way is Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendhelsohn) the CEO of IOI (Innovative Online Industries) and his army of employees/indentured servants. Nolan's vision for the future of the OASIS clashes with Halliday and Morrow's vision, he doesn't see a paradise, he sees potential for ad revenue and microtransactions.
So, if you're looking at the summary and it sounds like it might be a little too obscure for you, there's plenty to enjoy with Ready Player One. With most of the movie taking place in cyberspace, we not only spend plenty of time with Wade in Columbus, but we spend most of the movie with Wade's avatar Parzival in the OASIS. The movie relies a lot on CGI graphics, but they look fantastic. I was so immersed in each world the movie decided to visit, from a fiery molten wasteland in Planet Doom to surfing waves. To sell the plot, the visual effects needed to be top notch and the artists behind-the-scenes were up to the task. This was compounded by the jaw-dropping action scenes. If you've seen the trailers, the first challenge is an unbeatable race with unique challenges. I was blown away by this sequence, I couldn't believe that someone like Spielberg helped create it. It would have been easy to just do the same old thing but he and his team (including screenwriters Zak Penn and Ernest Cline) came to work and made something worth going to see.
Even though a lot of the movies goes through the avatars, all the actors and actresses still get time to bring something to the table. Tye Sheridan is decent as Wade, he's playing the bright-eyed optimistic hero that's a little too naÃ¯ve. There were times where he sunk into the part but other times he was too plucky to buy. The supporting cast picked up the slack, Olivia Cooke was strong as Art3mis, her character is less abrasive in the movie and it gives her a chance to show her natural chemistry with Sheridan. She's a hero in her own right and Cooke does a great job. Lena Waithe was just as good as Aech, her character has some twists that could have been difficult to handle but she handles them capably. Ben Mendelsohn does as much as he can as Sorrento, he's not the most captivating villain. But Mendelsohn is a veteran at being menacing and he brings his creepy demeanour to play. Mark Rylance is a frequent Spielberg collaborator and there's a reason he won an Academy Award. Simon Pegg was also a welcome addition, you're always happy to see him.
Ready Player One isn't a flawless movie but I could get around most of the minor problems. I found the choices for the score to be really on the nose, from using We're Not Going to Take It as the hype song before the battle to Stayin' Alive as the club music, I would have picked something a little less obvious. It was also hard to buy into some of the movie's more emotional moments. Some of the dialogue between Parzival and Artemis is cringe-worthy. There was also an effort to smooth out the rougher parts of Cline's book, his vision of Wade's reality was a lot darker and this version of the future was pleasant by comparison.
This movie is a triumph for Steven Spielberg, even if it borders on being hokey in small bits. I couldn't believe that an established veteran director delivered such an energetic and fun movie that fires references like one of the characters handling a minigun. This might upset the diehard fans, but I am among the faithful and the departures they take boost the material instead of detracting from it. I can't imagine that even if you haven't seen most of the included properties, you won't find something to enjoy or laugh about. With the number of obscure nods and winks, just by sheer volume, the odds are something that will hit. I recommend this highly and I would happily go to the theatre to experience Ready Player One again.