Accept your reality... or fight for a better one.

Rating: 8/10 (4 August 2018)

I have seen "Ready Player One" last night after waiting for months and the film managed to respond to my expectations. "Ready Player One" is more of a pop-culture quiz where you test your knowledge about great films and references of the 70s and 80s. In every scene there is a reference to a film or an icon from Jurassic Park to Back to the Future, from Citizen Kane to Chucky. There are more than 300 references in the film to the pop culture and the more you catch these references, the more you trust your cinema knowledge. I felt pretty good about myself after I have seen this film. My favorite reference in the film was the Zemeckis Cube, which turns time 60 seconds back when used. If you can remember the fact that Back to the Future Trilogy was directed by Robert Zemeckis, that scene, were the cube is used, will make a huge sense. I had a lot of fun watching "Ready Player One." Directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, "Ready Player One" is based on the novel with the same name by Ernest Cline. Unfortunately, I have not read the book, but I heard that there are some certain differences between the book and the film. If you are a reader, this fact shouldn't surprise you because there is hardly a film that can catch up with the quality details of a book.
"Ready Player One" opens in the year 2045. World looks like a post-apocalyptic place. Even big cities look like slums. Everything is unorganized, and everyone seems unhappy. People live their lives in virtual environments and avoid reality. This visual challenge is supported by the narrator's explanations in the beginning of the film. OASIS is the most popular game where everyone seems to play. You wear your high-tech gaming glasses and enter in the universe of OASIS where you can do anything you want or be anyone you want. There are no limits. You collect coins and upgrade your life standards in the game. When the creator of this universe, James "Anorak" Halliday (Mark Rylance) dies, he puts an Easter Egg, somewhere in this universe and challenge players to find it. The first person to find this egg will be the owner of the game. In order to find this egg, you need to collect three keys by solving different puzzles. Protagonist Parzival (Tye Sheridan) and his friends start this journey, but in the end, they realize they are up against a much bigger challenge.
The story seems to be classic one. I would like to call it a fairytale of modern times. I liked the combination of real life characters with their virtual duplicates. "Ready Player One" is progressing mostly in the virtual environment supported by computer animations, and sometimes it goes back to real life with real people. It is quite a fact that, people are getting attached to technology more and more each day. Due to the advanced technology and lack of trust among people, we start to enjoy solitude. I am one of those guys. I prefer my books and films to human interactions. Because there are expectations in the real life, but to be honest, I also envied the friendship in the film. In his film, Steven Spielberg promotes the idea of "living in the real life because it is real". "Ready Player One" shares this message out loud. This is the purpose of the film. He is using a highly advanced computer game to warn people against it, however this change is unavoidable because everyone is aware of this, and even so, they get more attached to it each day. People are happy indoors, they feel safe in the unsafe world. This is the main purpose of this change towards solitude.
Computer generated images and scenes are the strongest points of the film. There is a constant action, which will satisfy the fans of the action genre. The idea of the film is unique and equally amazing. While Spielberg follows a path in his film, he takes a lot of detours and shares pop culture references to aim for a less serious and more entertaining film. "Ready Player One" is one of the best films where you can see where the cinema technology is today. My favorite part of the film was, when the group enters in the Overlook Hotel in The Shining Universe, because The Shining is one of my favorite books. Strange enough, I find an unexplainable peace in that ghost hotel. With its atmosphere, message and soundtracks, as well as everything I have counted above, "Ready Player One" is a visual example of what is going to happen within the next 30 years. If I will be alive I can't wait to compare the film with the reality of 2045.