It must have been incredibly surreal for Steven Spielberg to direct this movie so heavy in homage to media he either witnessed or oversaw himself at its inception. From the T-Rex of Jurassic Park which he directed, to the DeLorean from Back to the Future which he produced, as well as a ton of other cameos from intellectual properties from the 1980s to today. Indeed Ready Player One was notable for its vast pop culture compendium before this movie came out -it was one of the main selling points of Ernest Cline’s novel.
Set in 2045, Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) lives in a slum in Columbus, Ohio, where he, like most of the world, spends a lot of his time in a virtual reality called the OASIS. It’s creator, James Halliday (Mark Rylance) embedded a game in the OASIS before he died, where anyone can compete on a quest to find three hidden keys. Whoever achieves them will win control of the company and thus a monopoly on the worlds’ most lucrative past-time. Once Wade starts to figure out how to advance in the game, it attracts Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the CEO of a rival video game manufacturer, who will go to any lengths to win.
It can’t be understated how amazing it is the team behind this movie managed to get through so much copyright. This movie’s not just full of characters and references from disparate movies, but also television shows, video games, music, and a couple animes. Even Marvin the Martian appears for a moment! A few, such as the DeLorean and the Iron Giant have featured heavily in the marketing, but there are too many to name, and it’s just more fun to spot them yourself. The movie uses them in some interesting ways too, including a middle sequence that’s largely set in one iconic horror film, and being a fan of that film (as well as noting Spielberg’s admiration), it’s really impressive seeing how closely it’s replicated. And it’s funny too that the climactic trial to complete the quest revolves around an old video game system. However once you look past this veneer of nostalgia, the greater flaws of the film make themselves more apparent. For though the simple plot makes sense given the video game rules, the story beyond that in the real world is pretty bland, and not unlike something you’d come across in any other YA story about an evil corporation vying for power.
Just about all of the players in the OASIS are pop culture obsessives; most like Wade lack much of a life outside of the fantasy. And Wade is a bit obnoxious. Sheridan plays the part as well as its written, but that’s the issue -he’s written weakly. His narration device is purely for exposition and he never misses a chance to show off his trivia. Also Wade is very much a forced hero. It’s unbelievable that the deductions he comes to based around Halliday’s clues nobody else had thought of. His relationship with Olivia Cooke’s Art3mis isn’t developed well at all, and as far as her character goes, she has her moments, such as real-world stakes she’s fighting for in the OASIS. But there’s one contrived part where she seems to insist Wade is everyone’s one hope and takes a fall because of it, even though there’s absolutely no reason she couldn’t be. At this point in the story they’re equally matched in achievement, but Wade has to be the hero. It makes his story on a whole feel horribly like a self-insert fantasy for young male audience members, with Art3mis the suave and skilled yet ultimately empty romantic prize.
Lena Waithe is good though, and T.J. Miller’s pretty funny. The best performance comes unsurprisingly from Rylance. This is the last role you’d expect an actor like the classically trained Mark Rylance to play: a nerd. But he plays him with a fascination that comes across. In fact I was hoping for a lot more of his story and memories, archived within the OASIS. Simon Pegg plays the Wozniak to Halliday’s Steve Jobs, but isn’t in the movie nearly enough. There’s some genuine drama alluded to in their relationship but we never see it play out, and despite the onslaught of recognizable characters, these are the ones I was more interested in following. Mendelsohn, the third seasoned actor doing an American accent, isn’t anything more than an evil suit -his avatar is literally that. There’s a hint at something more interesting in his character, but the movie never takes that route.
Actually the ending itself is disappointing. The world of Ready Player One is a dystopia that’s unaware it’s a dystopia, the major theme being the importance of not wasting life in a fabricated reality. That to live in the world is more important than all this pop culture. But Ready Player One doesn’t go far enough with its answer to the problem to the point it feels disingenuous. There’s been a lot of media that’s touched on virtual addiction and most have offered a healthier solution.
But I will say the CGI was good -cleverly good. It’s not at all convincing, but given the set-up of the OASIS as a kind of video game, it works perfectly in context. Any of these characters are rendered to look like they could be real avatars in real video games. And it is an entertaining watch, especially if you’re a pop culture fan. But its message is underwhelming, its focus is off of what would be most narratively satisfying, and its lead is much too transparent. Even King Kong and a xenomorph can’t atone for those.
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