**** outta *****

4 outta 5

The real star of Ready Player One isn’t the two leads or even the metric ton of pop culture references, cameos and Easter Eggs scattered throughout.  This is director Steven Spielberg’s starring effort.  The past few years he has done less pop action cinema and instead has delivered mostly chatty historical dramas but with Ready Player One is Spielberg back masterfully crafting kinetic, gigantic action.  The world-building and imagery is fantastic even if the plot and the main guy is a bit generic but that fits the videogame quest narrative.  Ready Player One also looks great in 3D which is a bonus considering too many 3D movies recently lack this movie’s sense of jaw-dropping 3D immersion.

In 2045, Wade (Tye Sheridan) lives in a poverty stricken junkyard wasteland, however every day he escapes to the elaborately large virtual world called the OASIS where anyone can be anything.  In the OASIS, players are trying to find three keys left behind by the deceased inventor of the program, Halliday (Mark Rylance) and Wade finds the first key.   Another top level competitor, Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), offers to help Wade find other keys even though his robo-Orc friend Aech (Lena Waithe) is wary of Art3mis’ true intentions.   With Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the head of the evil corporation IOI, breathing down their necks, the virtual game for Wade and his crew puts their real lives in jeopardy.  

There is a sweeping, breathtaking introduction to the virtual world of the OASIS that is basically a giant exposition drop but Spielberg makes it incredibly compelling, cutting back and forth from flashbacks to real time to virtual world to reality to past and present seamlessly.  This is probably more of a CGI animated movie than live action which is good because it allows Spielberg to be visually crazy with his camera.  There’s an intentional jarring tonal disconnect between how Wade flies in the virtual world and the broken down slums where everyone is desperate to make virtual cash.

When Halliday’s post-mortem message is sent out he’s shown rising a coffin that is Spock’s torpedo coffin from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is just one of the insane amount of pop culture references here.  Even trying to list the references is sort of pointless as pop culture is woven into the very fabric of the OASIS world.  For example, Art3mis’ favourite personal weapon is actually a Pulse Rifle from Aliens but it’s not explicitly pointed out or when a charge of an army runs over the hills for a final confrontation leading the pack are the Battletoads from the old ‘90s NES game. Also there’s a brief moment involving Goro from Mortal Kombat and a chestburster from Alien that is pure geek nirvana.  Some references are very much pointed out, like when Wade shows off his buddy’s Aech’s stash of famous space ships but even then it’s more about displaying how the characters know everything about the world that Halliday built. 

The music by Alan Silvestri adds an epic sweep and the soundtrack of 80s pop hits is employed perfectly, like when Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” kicks it at the battle climax, it’s absolutely badass.  One time the movie leans very heavily into a specific reference is setting the characters inside a classic Stanley Kubrick film which is an incredible recreation, right down to the film grain.  The crew’s digital OASIS avatar characters pop against the real world background making the whole thing crazier to behold.

Since the film is so much about the visual style, the characters tend to be overshadowed.  Sheridan as Wade, the movie’s hero, is fine, he’s very earnest and basically a blank everyman.  Cooke as Art3mis is actually really great as Art3mis may seem like a virtual dream but she has real world reasons that drive her determination to seek the prize.  There is a bunch of interesting, fun little line deliveries Cooke comes up with that makes her character pop.   The rest of Wade’s crew are unique mostly for their wacky looks and the revelation of who Aech is in the real world is a nice twist, but most of their scenes feel like filler.  Mendelsohn as the evil CEO is doing the smarmy jerk bit he did so well in Rogue One and T.J. Miller plays an evil wizard sidekick who has a lot of fun one liners. 

Probably the most emotional performance is Rylane as he infuses Halliday with lonely geek pathos that is contrasted with the God-like persona his avatar has in the OASIS.  There are multiple flashbacks to him building the OASIS and conflicts with his partner, played by Simon Pegg, slow things down for an emotional payoff.  In the movie’s climatic scene, reality and virtual avatars blend together and Rylance gives it some heart, which is needed since Wade is just sort of bland. 

Ready Player One is a pretty stunning experience.  It may cobble together everything and shake it all up but the end result is something truly unique, which is quite a neat trick.   It also shows that Spielberg, if he wants to, can make crackerjack action pop cinema better than almost anyone else.  Seeing him in the driver’s seat of sci-fi cinema again is awesome.