A landmark

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2018)

I could feel a sweet taste in my mouth coming out from the cinema after Ready Player One knowing I'd be coming straight back here, my very own "Oasis", to write this very review about a movie that I hope will be a landmark for all the other people, who like me live in a world where "pop culture" isn't just a part of history, but it's a part of real life... or simply IS real life.
Ready Player One isn't a movie for everyone. It's a gem that is only to be understood by the people who it is made for. A hymn bellowing aloud to every single person who struggles in life.
The misunderstood, the shunned... people who don't know what place they have on this earth, people who don't know how to start living, people who hide and those who create an invisible shell around themselves separating them from everyone else... people like me... the internet people.
Those of us that live in a world where comic books aren't just "books with figures for kids", where videogames aren't just brainwashing violence, where movies matter and they have to be talked about, where the line between fantasy and what is real and tangible is so thin, that it enables us to expand our minds and so deeply changing every single one of us: the way we talk, the way we look, the way we think, how we interact, how we live!
Those are the people Ready Player One was made for. Me and you reading this.
This is for US.
I feel sorry for those who cannot possibly feel the relevance this movie has. Who did not understand any of the references, the little things this movie was brought up upon, the lingo the characters use, the way they are portraited the way in which it takes them a blink of an eye to feel like family, to trust one another completely and depend on each other, the need they have to feel included and not eclipsed by society.
There is only sadness in that, at least for me writing this, I could not live a life without this, it would be colorless.
Ready Player One is an amalgamation of pop culture concentrated in 2 hours and 20 minutes in the form of a videogame where everything your imagination wants is right in front of you.
The characters will fight against an "EvilCorp" to take control of "Oasis" the virtual reality that is the pinnacle of society's future by racing to find the ultimate "Easter egg" and ensure the community is safe from exploitation by greedy goblins that do not want you to install "AdBlock" as a mod.
The movie struggles to have a very clear line between real and virtual because of the consistent switches between CGI and "regular" film, this up until the very end where it finds balance and leaves the viewer, who understands what is going on, with a message that to me is most important in all that happens: take a break from the internet.
I shouldn't need to say this - but render unto Caesar the quality of CGI is out the roof, everything is super-detailed and the animations are PHENOMENAL, which is on-par with the few real-life choreographies that are featured in some of the switches between real and virtual that I mentioned earlier. The colors are so vivid and perfectly placed some of the scenes are dreamy and give a sense of everlasting life to what is happening which further thins the line between you - the viewer and it - the picture.
Steven Spielberg is a master at giving life to what could very well look bland and lifeless and for that, I shall thank him till the day I die.
It's always a pleasure to see Easter eggs and references inside movies, like we're used to with the MCU, but I daresay this one is an entire different level.
Let me explain to you why: Everything you see, from the WIRED magazine, to the "Twitch" streaming mention, to the DeLorean to the Iron Giant, Tracer, Halo, Gears of War and also all the Back to the Future tingling sounds that warm my heart, these aren't just references or Easter eggs, and this is why this movie it SO GOOD, they ARE the movie!
It's just a facet of our life that is there to remind ourselves that, however sci-fi the movie might look like, if you think deep enough it's actually a mirror of everyday life (if you're a nerd, like me).
The story itself isn't too shallow or a Denis Villeneuve mindfuck, it's a simple low and high climax with a big reveal and a moral story, so it's a textbook good story... but it is the way it was shaped to enclose everything that just shoots at your brain so seamlessly that makes it even better.
Besides my personal opinion, I think the cast overall was just spot on. I don't think I can contribute objectively on this subject, for this particular work.
I rarely enjoy Ben Mendelsohn, especially as a bad guy.
What I can say is that I loved the perpetuating and profusing synergy between Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke. I LOVED how bad-ass Lena Waithe looked OOC and how massive her character looked in-game which also showed some soft spots which gave it more depth.
Win Morisaki did one thing near the end of the movie that I won't spoil but I screamed the name of that thing in the room and everybody was both pissed and annoyed by me (Don't regret it)
In general, I just loved the crew altogether, bit of a weak villain but honestly, it's not that bad, it's really hard giving dignity to someone who you know is going to lose anyway, unless you are Andrew Kevin Walker and like messing up everyone's mind.
To end this review I would like to say I almost cried in 10 scenes purely by nerd-gasm, I definitely cried when Win Morisaki did that thing that I cannot speak of without spoiling, with the big purple sword and that bang-bang-bang-bang and those tin-tin-tin from Back to the Future and also all the brum-brum-brum, also cried on the dance swooshy-swoosh scene where they - and so I kept crying and I had to hold my breath when she did that thing with the bike that they mentioned and that was my big "whoa" and then the movie ended and they said that thing and I was like "fuck that I don't take days off I gotta learn RS6 Siege".
Peace.