Spielberg back on top

Rating: 7/10 (27 April 2018)

Ready Player One: Spielberg being his usual whimsical self with the book which even the author didn't believe could be made into a movie. The book is described as 'The Matrix meets Willy Wonka' and that describes the movie rather well as well. The year is 2045 and everyone is obsessed with a virtual world known as the Oasis, where you can be anything and anyone. The inventor of this world has passed away and set up a series of challenges and clues in the Oasis and whoever wins all the challenges gets his company. Throw in an infinite amount of cameos and references from everything pop culture related and you have the movie.
Walking into Ready Player One you tell yourself you won't let the nostalgia get you, but... Yeah it's impossible. Just seeing The Iron Giant in the trailer was enough to get my nostalgia feelings going. And one of the challenges in the competition for the Oasis is an extended Shining reference were we go into The Overlook Hotel and all its slightly creepy grandeur, from that point I didn't care I got my tickets worth out of the movie.
Though, nostalgia aside, Ready Player One has some issues outside the three big challenges (all shown in the trailer: the race, the Shining, and the humongous fight), the film is rather dull with a lot of emphasis on explaining. Which is sad because it opened so promising; showing rather than telling. Depicting people in the real world acting out their fantasy with the Oasis headset on. But afterwards Ready Player One felt the need to explain everything and anything.
The movie is everything Spielberg excels at while adding a nostalgia filled thrill ride; and unlike the Lego Batman Movie which went from a fantastic batman story into references vomit on the screen, Ready Player One sprinkled this throughout the whole movie so it wasn't completely surprising seeing a Gundam show up, it just made added tingly awesomeness to it. I give Ready Player One a B-