Enjoyable with great CGI

Rating: 8/10 (6 April 2018)

Steven Spielberg has released yet another blockbuster, Ready Player One, only a year after the Oscar-Nominated The Post. Despite the disappointing, almost repelling trailer, Ready Player One is an enjoyable, entertaining blockbuster filled with amazing action sequences, but lowly nuanced characters. The film plays on the nostalgia of the 80s generation (many Easter Eggs; Alien, Back to the Future, Akira, etc.) much like the E.T. inspired Stranger Things adding that blockbuster, superhero-virtual-reality twist to draw the younger generations. Basically, it's a film that can be enjoyed by anyone. The film is also successful in not resorting to a classic Hollywood move: recruiting pretty and handsome teenagers to fill the role, which is refreshing and pleasing to see in this generation of film. The film strays from recruiting a line-up of an all-star cast, with great performances from the leading actors. The "star" actors amount to only two or three: Ben Mendelsohn (who is abruptly and quickly established as the antagonist), Mark Rylance (who previously starred in Spielberg classic Bridge of Spies) and Simon Pegg. The acting is overall, pretty good, but, due to some underdeveloped (sometimes poorly developed) and stereotypical characters, the ledge to fantastic is too steep for the film to climb. The film manages to retain a level of intrigue (despite glaring similarities to The Matrix) with an incredible realism surrounding animated and CGI features, which is basically three-quarters of the film. A great follow-up to the near-classic The Post, Spielberg completely switches genres and target audiences to create another great production