A Love Letter To Pop Culture Best Left Unread

Rating: 5/10 (5 April 2018)

Pop culture, like fashion tends to move in cycles. There are many cycles operating concurrently, but the thirty year cycle is one of the most well known. With the John Hughes inspired Love, Simon to the popularity of Stranger Things, current pop culture is harkening back to everything 80s. So to enlist Spielberg's help in bringing to life this movie makes sense, but Ready Player One seems more interested in dredging up nostalgia and pop culture trivia than actually telling a compelling story.
While reading through other reviews I spotted even more pop culture references that they caught that I happened to miss. The movie is so chock full of references and mentions of pop culture that if you were to remove even half of them the movie would probably be the equivalent of a short film. 80s nostalgia was ever present, but Ready Player One was ready to throw everything and the kitchen sink at you to try and pander to every possible demographic. From gamers to movie lovers to music aficionados.
Speaking of music, Ready Player One falls into the modern trap of using popular and well placed music to try and make up for a complete lack of character depth. It's quite like Suicide Squad in that way. I think Hollywood has recently been able to find ways to trick audiences into thinking a movie was actually worth it by using the soundtrack and visuals to make up for a lacking of everything else. Not only were musicians and songs mentioned, but so many obvious and outdated song choices were used.
I find it hard to believe that people living in the near future will have encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture that is already considered dated by many. If most 18 year olds now don't recognize 80s nostalgia, why would a gaggle of 18 year olds thirty years from now be so tuned in? Ever since Juno came out, filmmakers have really tried to turn teenagers into mini-adults who are inexplicably wise beyond their years, and it's become one of my biggest pet peeves. Stop. Just stop.
Not only were pop culture references and obvious song choices crammed in at every opportunity, but the movie itself feels bloated, never choosing an aesthetic of its own and just taking elements of superior films, like The Shining to mimic well. If the best part of your movie is a recreation of another movie, it's probably a bad sign. Not only was the plot underdeveloped, but it was ironically and simultaneously too busy. There were too many characters to focus on, and as a consequence they are caricatures. Everything, even down to the frames of the film itself are busy as can be.
In her series on YouTube discussing the Transformers series, Lindsay Ellis talks about why it's so hard to remember what happens in these Michael Bay movies, and it boils down to poor editing and emphasizing everything in the films to the point where the viewer is expected to pay attention to every scene as if it's super important. Ready Player One suffers from this, so many scenes are demanding your attention that by the time you get to the climax of the movie you're spent and unable to pay attention to what's going on, having just spent the last hour and a half noticing every inane detail.
Some details are amusing at first, but it felt insulting after the 277292723rd pop culture reference was thrown into the already jumbled mix. Ready Player One isn't a joyless movie, but it is an exhausting one. Fans of pop culture might appreciate this movie, but it's better to steer clear and just stick to the original incarnations, as Ready Player One will probably only be liked for its association to better things. After halfway through, I felt as though I'd been stuck on a rollercoaster that was at first fun, but I wanted to get off.