(3 / 4)
Ready Player One directed by Steven Spielberg is the long anticipated film adaptation of the well-received 2011 novel by Ernest Cline. The film, like the book, utilizes the setting of a not too distant future in which the world is plagued with disasters such as over population and a lack of sustainable energy, with the currency from the game being the most stable in the world. With current issues such as climate change, the increasing relevance of digital currencies like bitcoin, and concerns about the effects of video games on aggression, Ready Player One seems primed to make a bold statement about our society and whether these technological advancements are beneficial or not to humankind. Ready Player One is not this type of film.
Spielberg has opted out of creating a story with a profound statement about our society in favor of a film that evokes the excitement that video games offer individuals, while littering the story with as many references to established properties as possible. In this vein Ready Player One can best be described as a combination of Tron Legacy’s blend of reality and video game imagery with The Lego Movie’s splashy manner of incorporating references to other franchises. The film is a blast to watch from beginning to end, however, Ready Player One lacks heart and fails to be anything beyond a frenetic visual spectacle that will appeal to gamers and casual moviegoers alike.
As was mentioned, the film takes place in the year 2045 whereby almost everyone on the planet chooses to enter a virtual reality world known as the Oasis rather than engage with the real world. The Oasis was created by James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and upon his death he has established a challenge within the virtual reality world, called Annorak’s Quest, in which players must obtain three keys in order to win the grand prize of owning the Oasis and deciding upon the fate of the virtual world. The film centers on Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), an 18-year-old Oasis player who is fully committed to winning Annorak’s Quest by studying James Halliday’s past in an effort to learn how to win the three keys.
Wade eventually crosses paths with a famous player of the game known as Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), with whom he strikes up a friendship after saving her virtual avatar’s life. Wade and Art3mis collaborate with the other three highest scoring players of Annorak’s Quest in the hope of completing the challenge and earning the reward. The team, known as the “High Five,” are in direct competition with the video game company called Innovative Online Industries (IOI), which is headed by the ruthless CEO Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) with the intention of winning the Oasis and make IOI more profitable. The rest of the film centers on the two forces vying for the grand prize.
While I was watching the film I was immediately caught off guard by how the overwhelming majority of the story takes place in the Oasis with very little occurring in the real world. This was understandable as the Oasis was portrayed in an exciting and vibrant fashion and contained the best moments of the film. One particular highlight of the film was the multitude of references to almost any popular video game or movie franchise you could imagine.
It should be noted that although this isn’t revolutionary as The Lego Movie probably utilized this technique of referencing other films and brands even more extensively, Ready Player One is more effective in many ways as these references would occur without any fanfare, making it that much more rewarding when you would spot them. By subtly alluding to other franchises for the most part, the film also prevents the audience from feeling distracted by the references, which could have potentially become tiresome as the film progressed. There is a standout sequence that references The Shining which is an example of how the film perfectly balanced referencing the property without feeling as though it wasn’t organic to the plot. Additionally there are many amusing nods to aspects of online gaming such as the fear or surprise one may have about what your in-game friend looks like in the real world.
Despite the film being more than 2 hours long, the plot never manages to lose steam. The beginning of the film is somewhat tedious as the first act is extremely heavy on exposition, however, this can be overlooked as this early data dump enabled the remainder of the film to have a fun, brisk pace. This energetic pacing was also propelled by the lead performances of Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke. Sheridan provides Wade with an earnestness and innate passion for the Oasis that persuades you to feel as though you are on Wade’s side the moment Sheridan first appears on screen. Olivia Cooke was also great casting as she manages to present Samantha in a way that balances her defiant conviction for rebelling against the evil IOI with a genuine warmth and sense of caring for Wade. These extremely likeable performances make it even more surprising that I felt no emotional investment in the plight of the protagonists and never cared that much if they succeeded with their plan or not.
The lack of an emotional connection is odd as so many of Spielberg’s past films have an innate magic to them, in which you are desperately hoping that the protagonists will end up safe by the end and will have successfully completed their mission. Despite the charisma of the protagonists, the film didn’t properly elaborate on the daily struggles faced by Wade and Samantha. With the bulk of the film’s runtime spent in the virtual Oasis this left insufficient time to develop the real world the characters of the film inhabit. As a result, the audience is never allowed to understand what is so lacking in the real world that is portrayed other than through superficial visual cues such as the color scheme being grey and industrial in contrast with the vivacious and striking aesthetic of the Oasis.
Aside from one scene in which Wade is shown to be mistreated by his aunt’s boyfriend, the characters merely seem bored by their real life and this leads to the audience feeling little motivation to see the protagonists prevail by the end. There is an attempt at a moral message towards the end of the film about playing video games and how this pales in comparison to the natural joys offered by the real world through relationships, however this message falls flat and is almost ironic as the best parts of this film have more to do with the video gaming rather than the events outside of the Oasis. This half-baked moral coupled with the lack of insight into what drives Wade and Samantha leads to a lack of catharsis once the story reaches its conclusion, which the film was clearly aiming for.
Ready Player One is a film that desperately wanted to have heart and tug at your emotions and the film fails on this level, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth seeing and succeeds in every other way. Between the visuals of the Oasis, the nonstop excitement as the plot progresses, and the amusing references sprinkled throughout the film, Ready Player One is one of the more fun movies I can think of in recent memory. The film can best be described as the equivalent of playing an assortment of your favorite classic video games with your friends. It may not stay with you long after the evening ends, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have a great time during the entire 2-and-a-half-hour runtime.
