Ready Player One is an explosion of fun, games and childhood memories. This spectacular film director by the one and only Steven Spielberg is genius in too many ways. He combines every form of neediness into one great nerd utopia, ranging from video games to comic book characters, from movie icons to pop culture trends he really incorporates a bit of everything. That’s why, being a nerd myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this film from start to finish.
The narrative itself is cleverly simple because otherwise this film would be hard to follow as all of the references would become too distracting and confusing. In 2045 the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant James Halliday (Mark Rylance) allows humans to escape the chaos of real life. When Halliday dies, he leaves his fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS.
Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) our unlikely hero is by far one of my favourite cinematic characters of this year. Both his real life self and his virtual reality self are relatable, comical and most of all lovable. He’s an innocent teen who finds himself caught up in something a lot bigger than he expected.
The narrative is very cleverly tailored to be identical to a game itself, so we as an audience feel like we are playing game. We try to decipher to codes and we try to win along side Wade, Spielberg has truly captured the essence of video gaming and the love of pop culture to seamlessly merge these two aspects of people’s lives.
The special effects are just as seamless as the narrative, it is so easy to watch the characters alternate from the real world and the OASIS. Normally too much CGI can ruin the watchability of a film, this did the completely opposite. I was waiting for the character go to back into the OASIS, the real world felt boring and slow I wanted them to get back into the action. The avatars created for our actors were a perfect combination of random features and a slight likeness to the real people, this gave the characters completely new personalities whilst still allowing the audiences to know who’s who.
I felt biased watching this film as I’m already a true admirer of Spielberg, but in saying that this film is so completely different to anything he has ever done before. He could have failed, but I can assure you, he did not.
If you are a true movie buff like me, then I can promise you you’ll love this film from start to finish just like me. It’s an explosion of pop culture references and movies secrets, be sure to watch it twice to try and notice all the subtle features added into the background.
Top tip… be sure to watch The Shining before you go to the cinema. You’ll thank me later.
“People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be”.
10/10 probe points.
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