When Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One was released, it was described as "the holy grail of pop culture references".
It was therefore a bit of a surprise when Steven Spielberg stepped forward to direct the adaptation. After all, not many have done more than Spielberg when it comes to 80s pop culture. As evidenced by the numerous references to his work in the novel.
But really there was no one better to tackle the material of a virtual online world where people go to escape and get in touch with their inner child. Because much of his work is about the innocence and wonder of seeing the world as a child (E.T., Jurassic Park, Hook).
The book and film's detractors, most of whom were ironically "online", have slated the material as nothing more than page after page of mentions of films, TV programmes, music and games allowing multiple opportunities to use this meme:
In fact the only people who worked harder than the visual effects designers on the film were the team tasked with securing the licences to feature all the different characters and images.
Spielberg makes sure their efforts were not in vain by doubling down on the references and begins the story with a drag race around a virtual Manhattan where cars and bikes such as a DeLorean, Tetsuo's bike from Akira, the Batmobile, Ecto-1, etc must dodge dangers including a T-Rex and end-of-level boss King Kong.
It is an exhilarating sequence that shows that Spielberg is still down with the kids looking to take his place on the Summer blockbuster throne.
After that however, he dials it back from 11 and thankfully the references take a back seat to the plot which sees a group of gamers including Wade Watts' Parzival attempt to solve the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory style competition set down by the Oasis creator James Halliday to find three Easter Eggs within the online world in order to win $500 trillion dollars and control of the system.
The film does stay relatively faithful to the book but does streamline the process. Here taking a matter of weeks rather than years as Parzival (Tye Sheridan) and his friends battle against the IOI corporation led by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) for control of the Oasis and stop it becoming a monetised, corporate entity instead of the escape, haven (and yes) oasis that it is.
The more obscure nods and references to certain computer games and films that feature in some of the major plot moments are replaced with more audience-friendly choices which leads to one of the most jaw-dropping, audacious sequences that will feature in any mainstream movie this year.
The gamers must enter a movie watched by Halliday on his first date in order to gain one of the keys but to say which film would spoil the surprise. Suffice to say, seeing the characters walk into the film and interact with the characters and environment is something truly special and is undoubtedly the highlight of the film... provided you have the belly for it that is.
The main issue the film has is balancing the real world sequences vs the Oasis.
It does spend more time with the characters when they are away from their online avatars than the book but due to the nature of the beast, the Avatars have more personality within the Oasis than they do outside. Perhaps this is a deliberate choice as they feel more at home there than in the real world.
It is a frustration that more time wasn't spent building up day-to-day life outside of the Oasis to provide more context as to why people are escaping. Instead we just get a couple of throwaway lines of dialogue and glimpses of "the stacks", the towers of mobile homes where Watts stays.
Admittedly when the Oasis is as beautifully rendered as it is, the filmmakers themselves are so enthralled with it they don't want to leave either. They have nailed the look of the virtual reality space with the characters and environments looking more realistic than a computer game but not uncanny valley enough to pass for real.
This movie is going to have a huge shelf life on demand and Blu Ray as film nerds, similar to the ones who trawl through Halliday's Almanac, spend hours going through the film frame by frame to spot all the references in the background. Of which there are probably thousands. On first viewing, people like Freddy Krueger, Chucky, Harley Quinn, Chun-Li, Gandalf were spotted wandering around. Even Sorrento's avatar looks like Jon Hamm playing Superman Red Son (and now I want to see that movie).
Powered by Alan Silvestri's score that amplifies that 80s vibe, and quite often echoes his music from Back To The Future, this is the ultimate trip for fans of nostalgia who ever wanted the chance to live in their favourite media. Although perhaps not quite, as one Twitter user called it, "our Black Panther" as it is fair to say that nerds have been pretty well represented on screen for years now. In fact, every John Hughes film was really their Black Panther!
However there is always a danger to this obsession with nostalgia and living in the past or an online world separate from reality. As Michael Sheen's character in Midnight In Paris said;
“Nostalgia is denial. Denial of the painful present. The name for this denial is Golden Age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in - its a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.”
As much as Spielberg delivers in creating a world in which it would be incredibly appealing to disappear into to escape the problems and stresses of everyday life, and let's face it we could all use something like that at the moment. He also is careful to walk the line and show that not everything is perfect within this world of pure imagination when viewed through those rose-tinted VR headsets. Personified by the life of the creator James Halliday who is played the perfect amount of eccentricity and sadness by Mark Rylance.
Spielberg knows that the mediums of video games and movies are great as an escape for a few hours. Most audiences growing up in the Eighties would still stick on Raiders Of The Lost Ark or E.T. and immediately be drawn back to their childhood. But he knows that they are still no substitute for the real world and real human interaction.
Unlike the characters in a video game, where the stakes are sometimes life and death, with the fate of the world at stake, Ready Player One knows that it is a video game, a popcorn movie. A slice of entertainment that can be enjoyed and then when it is game over, turned off and you are back in the real world. But it will always be there, on a shelf somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered one day, turned on and ready to welcome you fondly back with those iconic words... Ready player one.
4 stars
