A going-to-be classic

Rating: 8/10 (29 August 2019)

Generally I don't like science fiction, but I loved Ready Player One, and here I'll explain why.
Ready Player one is a film that focuses its entire structure on the amazing visual power of the images that recreate a corrupt society, overwhelmed by a crisis of values, alienated and that finds its outlet only in virtual reality, in a parallel world where everyone can be what he wants, have the ambitions he has not in the real world, and pretend to be what is not.
With a visually spectacular and masterfully directed film, Spielberg weaves a clear warning that also shines well in front of the ruthless dynamism of the staging: in a post-apocalyptic future, the human society is totally absorbed by the virtual world: there are no ambitions , social and human relationships are almost non-existent. Every person lives his life entirely on OASIS: the more you play, the more powerful you become, but the more you play, the more you risk destroying yourself and even risk being sentenced to (virtual) forced labor in order to repay the debts you contracted playing .
Spielberg's warning is as actual and clear as ever: the contemporary world dominated by social media and virtual reality will eventually suck all of us into a vicious circle in which everyone will believe they are free, but no one will ever really be free: we will all be slaves of ourselves, slaves of screens and of false relationships that we will virtually undertake, where everyone can be everyone and anyone can pretend to be anyone.
On the narrative aspect, the shameless nostalgic quotationism of the pop culture of the 1980s is very interesting: Back to The Future, New Wave music, Duran Duran, The Shining and many others: an aspect that, in addition to entertain those whose hearts are left to those years, it's also a representation (and a veiled criticism) to modern society that lives on nostalgia and believes that it can perpetually alienate itself in the memory of a past period, apparently better (the eighties) of the social, cultural and human drama that overwhelms today's world.
Ready Player One is a magnificently direct, dynamic, highly entertaining film but also full of an absolutely undeniable moral: what you enjoy in this film can also induce you to think (and be frightened): what if in a close future wewould all end up in a world like Oasis?
Nothing is impossible but, considering our contemporary society, better make use of Hallyday's sentence:
"I know it sounds like a weird move, but people need to spend more time in the real world, because like Halliday said, reality is the only thing that's real."