Film Review: "Ready Player One"

There aren’t very many directors who have had quite the career that Steven Spielberg has. The man who directed the very first blockbuster in Jaws, is the same man who has put together some of our most beloved films such as the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the Indiana Jones series. It’s the same man that, aside from giving us these wonderfully imaginative films, has also given us hard-hitting dramas such as Schindler’s List, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies. His career has spanned 50 years, and the 71-year-old director shows no signs of slowing down. With his latest film, Ready Player One, Spielberg once again delivers an awe-inspiring film that captures the wonders of the imagination. It stars Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts/Parzival, Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook/Art3mis, Ben Mendelsohn as the villainous Sorrento and Mark Rylance as OASIS creator James Halliday.

The film takes place in 2045 Columbus, Ohio. In this futuristic setting, the world has become highly overpopulated, corrupt and polluted, and as a result most major cities have become slum-like areas. In order to escape the hopelessness of life, people participate in a virtual reality world known as the OASIS. However, when OASIS creator James Halliday dies, he reveals that he has hidden an “easter egg” somewhere in the game and whoever finds will become the new owner of the OASIS. This leads us to Wade, a teenage orphan living with his aunt in one of the slums. He, along with his best friend Aech and newfound friend Art3mis, must figure where the “easter egg” is in order to stop the evil corporation IOI from taking over the OASIS.

If you know anything about Ready Player One, it’s probably that it is filled to the brim with references to classic games and movies. In film, cameos can be a little tricky to pull off properly. They have to appear natural and be done in a way that doesn’t pull the audience out of the film. A bad cameo sticks out like a sore thumb and can taint the overall experience of the movie itself. One of the big concerns going into this film was how it would handle so many different cameos without making them feel odd or out-of-place. Ready Player One does such a wonderful job in fleshing out its virtual reality world that seeing Chucky or the Battletoads walking around seems as normal as seeing any other human walking down the street. If you are at all concerned about how that is handled, you shouldn’t be.

Ready Player One is so much more than just an excuse to celebrate geekdom, however. At its core, Ready Player One is about learning to live in the moment. It’s about the importance of making real connections with people and not getting lost in the things that don’t matter. Its positivity and upbeat nature is so incredibly infectious that you may find yourself smiling with joy at random moments of the film. Whether you know all of the characters and objects cameoing in this film or none of them, that is ultimately irrelevant because they are not the things that make-or-break this film. This film is as great as it is because of its incredible cast, its ability to effortlessly switch between live-action and animation and its wonderfully imaginative story. If this film were 10-15 minutes shorter, it would be perfect.        

It would be unfair to say that Steven Spielberg is back, because he never really left. He is, after all, coming off of directing a Best Picture nominee in The Post. Still, Ready Player One captures the imagination in a way that Spielberg’s older films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark or E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial did, something that Spielberg films haven’t really done in recent years. Ready Player One is filled with a sense of youthful exuberance, almost as if this film allowed Spielberg to turn back the clock and be a kid again. When you see this film, it might have the same effect on you.

My Score: 95%