Ready Player One

Movie Name: Ready Player One
Year of Release: 2018
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, Philip Zhao, Hannah John-Kamen, Win Morisaki, Susan Lynch, Ralph Ineson, Clare Higgins, Laurence Spellman
Genre: Action, Adventure
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
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Synopsis and Review

Following "The Post", director Steven Spielberg tackled the adaptation of the best seller by Ernest Cline, "Ready Player One", which the author adapted alongside Zak Penn (who was responsible for the story of the much maligned, and very underrated John McTiernan flop, "Last Action Hero"). The narrative takes place in 2045 and is focused on Wade Watts, a young man who spends much of his time inside this game experience by the name of OASIS, that is an immersive experience created by James Halliday and Ogden Morrow. Ogden has long abandoned his partnership with James, and with the latter's passing, a quest has been started within the game. Halliday has basically announced that whomever finds the Easter Egg contained in the game stands to become the owner of OASIS. In order to get that Easter Egg, the gamers have to find three keys. Those keys can be retrieved by overcoming three challenges. Anyone who plays the game can pursue it, which includes Wade, who goes by Parzival in the game, alongside his best friend Aech. Also on the trail of those keys and Easter Egg is the unscrupulous Nolan Sorrento, the CEO of IOI, who has hordes of his employees playing the game in order to get to the same goal. Wade has a deep knowledge of Pop Culture from the 1980s and James Halliday's life, and he eventually retrieves the first key, which gives him the access to clues to retrieve the second one. Sorrento tries to make a deal with him, but Wade is not interested and can see right through his approach. Sorrento manages to uncover Wade's true identity outside of the game, and tries to kill him using drones, but ends up killing his aunt and her deadbeat partner. Wade becomes even more focused on uncovering the remaining keys, all the while pursuing a crush for Art3mis, another player who has an agenda of her own.

Ernest Cline's book is delightful and imaginative, surfacing a variety of pop-culture and film references from the 1980s, that makes it all the more entertaining. Steven Spielberg, who ironically is responsible for many of those references, tackles this material with a mix of appreciation, delight, and not an overtly sentimental tone, as sometimes can happen with some of his features. "Ready Player One" maintains an emphasis on the adventure aspect of the narrative, in detriment to a certain extent, of giving its lead characters a bit more depth, both in terms of illustrating who they are, but also where their motivations lie, beyond playing and existing in the Oasis. And that's probably where the film feels a bit less accomplished, in the sense that the characters that exist within this narrative are somewhat under-developed, including the sinister and corporate villain Nolan Sorrento, who is illustrated solely in a particular light, with not much nuance to him (which is unlike most of Spielberg's darker characters, who even at their worst, display a sense of humanity or compassion). The director however truly embraces the journey within the game, bringing that excitement of uncovering clues and collaborating with a team of outcasts who are also the best of friends, something almost akin to Richard Donner's "The Goonies". The film feels very much like a suiting partner to many of the films Spielberg either directed or produced in the 1980s, albeit a more digital centric one. The narrative that occurs within the game may at times feel almost jarringly artificial, but it is indeed a game experience, and it is nicely rendered. It's a film that benefits from a diverse cast, with particular emphasis going to Ben Mendelsohn and Olivia Cooke, while the production team is, as always, impeccable, including Janusz Kaminski's cinematography, Adam Stockhausen's production design, and Kasia Walicka Maimone's costumes. A solid and entertaining film from a master storyteller.