Ready Player One: 4K Review

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2018)

Like many who had read the book I was sceptical when the film was first announced, Ernest Clines first Novel "Ready Player One" took me on an unforgettable nostalgia trip crammed packed with what seemed like my entire childhood.
With so many franchises, characters and music tracks I didn't think it would get out of the starting blocks, I mean, who could get all these different companies on board? I'll tell you who Steven frickin Spielberg, that's who!
The story is set in 2044-2045 where the world has become a dumping ground, and many of its inhabitants are living in makeshift homes made up of Jenga style stacked trailers called the Stacks.
To escape the misery of the real world, many people turn to the fantasy of Virtual Reality which enables them to become whoever they want, do what they want, when they want in the make-believe universe called "The Oasis."
The co-founder James Halliday has just passed away leaving "The Oasis" and its fortunes as a prize to whoever can solve the retro driven puzzles he has left behind.
Ready Player One pays tribute to many well-known Film, T.V and Game franchises such as Back To The Future, Nightmare On Elm Street, King Kong, Batman, Robocop, Aliens, Star Wars, Halo, Starcraft and Duke Nukem, Street Fighter, Mass Effect, there is literally too many to mention in this review.
Albeit the film doesn't touch on a lot of the book, it does do well to cram in the main story into the 2 hours 19 minutes of runtime, and as a massive fan of the book, I was not disappointed with what Spielberg has done with Ready Player One and how it translates in to the blockbuster hit it has become.
As mentioned in the title this is the 4k HDR review of this film, and if ever a movie was made 4k and a rip-roaring soundtrack this is it.
Straight from the get-go, visually Ready Player One looks jaw-dropping, the detail is phenomenal especially as for the most part there is so much happening on the screen at once, you can still see everything in its glory. The use of HDR (or Dolby Vision) if your TV supports it, helps significantly in this area by being able to show more of the dynamic range (A higher level of brightness) and much deeper black levels.
For the audio side of things, this disc supports all your standard formats alongside the superior Dolby Atmos Track which blew my mind. I am fortunate enough to able to make use of the latterly mentioned track and own many a film that support it, but by far the Atmos track on this disc is the best I have ever heard on any movie to date, it is just thunderous.
There is a scene in the film referencing Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," and a lot is going on audibly. Axes swing from all angles, blood-filled hallways running like a river smashing up against walls all while characters are shouting and screaming yet everything can be heard clearly and from every direction the director intended, the final scene is just mind blowing and is leaps and bounds ahead of anything I have heard before.
If you own a 4k TV/Projector supporting HDR you are in for a treat if you own the latter and an Atmos setup strap in for the ride as this is reference material at its finest.