movie review
Ready Player One
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Tagline: Break free.
The powers of nostalgia can be blamed for a number of recent big and small screen projects, including sitcom revivals and movie spin-offs. And nostalgia is clearly also the driving force behind the success of the cinematic adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel Ready Player One. Directed by the great Steven Spielberg, the film is a celebration of ‘80s pop culture by way of a visually ambitious extravaganza with a paper thin story.
It’s the year 2045, and humanity has chosen to escape its dystopian reality via the virtual world of the OASIS, leaving behind real-life desolation to venture into a digital world where the imagination is the only limit.
But the fate of this simulated world is left in limbo upon the death of James Halliday (portrayed by Mark Rylance), the co-creator of the OASIS and owner of the world’s biggest company. To determine the future of his creation after his demise, Halliday set up an Easter Egg hunt, hiding three keys inside his game. The first person to finish the quest gains total control of the OASIS and inherits the programmer’s massive fortune.
Among the many people who make it their mission to crack Halliday’s code is our protagonist Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), an orphaned teenager who goes by the avatar Parzival in the OASIS, and sees winning the quest as a ticket out of his impoverished life.
Of course a nefarious company, IOI, also wants to take over the program and has amassed an army of players focused on winning the prize.
It is thereby up to Wade and his virtual friends – including his bestie Aech (Lena Waithe) as well as Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), the protagonist’s obligatory love interest because how could there not be one – to triumph the challenges and stop IOI’s wicked CEO Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) from taking over the OASIS.
There are definitely seeds of an interesting premise here, but unfortunately they degenerate into a bundle of clichés overloaded with pop culture allusions. The film tries to distract viewers from the predictability of its storyline by turning the proceedings into a game of “spot the reference”. Combine this plethora of cultural nods with properly impressive – although vertigo-inducingly busy – visuals plus some very well executed sequences and you’d almost be inclined to excuse the triteness of the entire project … until you think about it and realize this isn’t quite the epic adventure it pretends to be.
Why is everyone fighting for escapism when they should be fighting to fix the real world instead? Who knows. And why should the potential disruption of a virtual world with advertising (or even the insinuation of data falling into the wrong hands) create a bigger hullaballoo than the actual killing of innocents in the real world? No idea.
The heroes of Ready Player One aren’t on a mission to fix real life issues but to preserve a fantasy that basically gives people a platform to not deal with genuine problems, and while the film makes a half-hearted attempt to dodge this criticism at the very end, its proposed solution is too little, too late, and too dumb.
To be fair, while Ready Player One is convoluted, it isn’t a complete mess. There are parts of it that certainly work. A sequence set inside a popular horror movie stands out, and T.J. Miller’s villainous henchman I-R0k is quite amusing. Spielberg’s world building is doubtlessly masterful. Plus you really can’t deny the nostalgic charm of seeing some of your favourites from the past randomly pop up throughout the proceedings.
But don’t expect depth, don’t expect layers. The heroes are the good guys; the villains are evil, scheming dirtbags. There are no real twists. It’s all very, very predictable. The dialogues are cloying. The live-action acting by the young leads is passable at best; the digital avatars aren’t very engaging (and sometimes make it seem like you’re watching someone play a very expensive-looking video game). At its core, the whole thing is straight from the young adult dystopian adventure playbook.
The film offers the same kind of escapism that it champions for much of its exhaustingly long running time. Turn off your mind, indulge in the nostalgic pop culture bombardment, and just go with the cheesy fun if you want to enjoy it. But whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of actually analysing it or you risk being underwhelmed by the utter banality of it all.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
- Sameen Amer
The Express Tribune Blogs - 7th April, 2018 *
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Tagline: Break free.
The powers of nostalgia can be blamed for a number of recent big and small screen projects, including sitcom revivals and movie spin-offs. And nostalgia is clearly also the driving force behind the success of the cinematic adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel Ready Player One. Directed by the great Steven Spielberg, the film is a celebration of ‘80s pop culture by way of a visually ambitious extravaganza with a paper thin story.
It’s the year 2045, and humanity has chosen to escape its dystopian reality via the virtual world of the OASIS, leaving behind real-life desolation to venture into a digital world where the imagination is the only limit.
But the fate of this simulated world is left in limbo upon the death of James Halliday (portrayed by Mark Rylance), the co-creator of the OASIS and owner of the world’s biggest company. To determine the future of his creation after his demise, Halliday set up an Easter Egg hunt, hiding three keys inside his game. The first person to finish the quest gains total control of the OASIS and inherits the programmer’s massive fortune.
Among the many people who make it their mission to crack Halliday’s code is our protagonist Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), an orphaned teenager who goes by the avatar Parzival in the OASIS, and sees winning the quest as a ticket out of his impoverished life.
Of course a nefarious company, IOI, also wants to take over the program and has amassed an army of players focused on winning the prize.
It is thereby up to Wade and his virtual friends – including his bestie Aech (Lena Waithe) as well as Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), the protagonist’s obligatory love interest because how could there not be one – to triumph the challenges and stop IOI’s wicked CEO Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) from taking over the OASIS.
There are definitely seeds of an interesting premise here, but unfortunately they degenerate into a bundle of clichés overloaded with pop culture allusions. The film tries to distract viewers from the predictability of its storyline by turning the proceedings into a game of “spot the reference”. Combine this plethora of cultural nods with properly impressive – although vertigo-inducingly busy – visuals plus some very well executed sequences and you’d almost be inclined to excuse the triteness of the entire project … until you think about it and realize this isn’t quite the epic adventure it pretends to be.
Why is everyone fighting for escapism when they should be fighting to fix the real world instead? Who knows. And why should the potential disruption of a virtual world with advertising (or even the insinuation of data falling into the wrong hands) create a bigger hullaballoo than the actual killing of innocents in the real world? No idea.
The heroes of Ready Player One aren’t on a mission to fix real life issues but to preserve a fantasy that basically gives people a platform to not deal with genuine problems, and while the film makes a half-hearted attempt to dodge this criticism at the very end, its proposed solution is too little, too late, and too dumb.
To be fair, while Ready Player One is convoluted, it isn’t a complete mess. There are parts of it that certainly work. A sequence set inside a popular horror movie stands out, and T.J. Miller’s villainous henchman I-R0k is quite amusing. Spielberg’s world building is doubtlessly masterful. Plus you really can’t deny the nostalgic charm of seeing some of your favourites from the past randomly pop up throughout the proceedings.
But don’t expect depth, don’t expect layers. The heroes are the good guys; the villains are evil, scheming dirtbags. There are no real twists. It’s all very, very predictable. The dialogues are cloying. The live-action acting by the young leads is passable at best; the digital avatars aren’t very engaging (and sometimes make it seem like you’re watching someone play a very expensive-looking video game). At its core, the whole thing is straight from the young adult dystopian adventure playbook.
The film offers the same kind of escapism that it champions for much of its exhaustingly long running time. Turn off your mind, indulge in the nostalgic pop culture bombardment, and just go with the cheesy fun if you want to enjoy it. But whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of actually analysing it or you risk being underwhelmed by the utter banality of it all.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
- Sameen Amer
The Express Tribune Blogs - 7th April, 2018 *
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