And if you were a lover of the 80's, chances are you were also a lover of Amblin and Steven Spielberg, for crafting some of the most endearing and memorable franchises and films of the decade. But, fun as nostalgia may be, to leap into it blissfully unaware of the world's larger problems can be a danger all on its own. That's an issue Spielberg himself tackles, in his adaptation of Ernest Cline's fanboy favorite book Ready Player One, of a world crumbling to pieces as that nostalgia dominates.
In an overpopolated and dystopian 2045, the only comfort anyone takes is in the Oasis, a simulated universe where billions of interconnected players can live out their greatest fantasies. Its inventor, James Halliday (Mark Rylance) has passed away, and left behind breadcrumbs leading to a hidden easter egg, whose discoverer will inherit Halliday's fortune, and the Oasis itself. On the hunt for Halliday's elusive clues, Wade Watts aka. Parzival (Tye Sheridan) soon becomes an overnight celebrity after securing the first of three keys, but soon draws the eye and wrath of Innovative Online Industries, led by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), that would turn the Oasis into a monetized premium service, and he must team up with rebel Gunter Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) and close friend Aech (Lena Waithe) if he'll save the simulation from IOI's greed.
Before seeing the film, I ran my way through Ernest Cline's original novel, and I think it's a very mixed bag. I think it's an engaging and often time poignant book, with some great central themes giving it weight, but the book is little more than teenage wish fulfillment with an often irritating protagonist, and a reliance on non-stop and sometimes grating pop culture references. Whatever your feelings on the book are, however, it's film adaptation - penned by Cline and Zak Penn - is a different beast, taking only the core essentials, and then completely rewriting it in the vein of Jurassic Park. And believe me, this movie is all the better for it.
If there's one quality of the book that successfully translated, it's in the world-building of the Oasis, and it's not hard to see why this simulated universe is so enrapturing. The Oasis is a world teeming with visual imagination, a dangerous, exciting, lush, and densely populated utopia-like assortment of vivid and spectacular worlds, with clear debts to the likes of Middle-Earth and Pandora in the pure scale of its creation. The world is so disjointed in mashing up numerous pop culture staples into its space, and yet so oddly complementary in its construction, that one can easily get lost in its expansive environment.
There's also a rich freedom, as well as danger, to the character creation of the program. In the Oasis, anyone can be anything, as the most alluring and suave alien creatures, and bulky beastly creatures. Even the basement stoner voice of TJ Miller, here as bounty hunter i-R0k, can be reimagined as a massive and intimidating dark wizard. But blissful as that anonymity and freedom sounds, there's still this sensation that the Oasis is too perfect, that behind the intoxicating beauty and tightly knit community of hunters, that escapism has only served to further detach these people from their real world issues, letting their home sink into poverty and decay. Innovative as his intentions may have been, it's not hard to see James Halliday in a similar vein to Oppenheimer, his creation pushing people apart as much as it connected, with Mark Rylance's turn as the developer crafting a bruising, but sensitive portrayal of isolation and lost opportunity.
You can further feel this sense of detachment in the way that the film addresses nostalgia with a double edged sword approach. It's not that the film attempts to shame anyone for their nostalgia, and in fact the film makes for a deeply enjoyable celebration of that geek culture through its pop culture heavy world, and unabashedly old-fashioned style (I'd be remiss not to mention Alan Silvestri's fantastic score that recalls his early Zemeckis days). But rather, Spielberg and the film seek to pull those nostalgic viewers away from the sensory overload, and ask to see the world around them with fresh eyes, addressing conflict and the struggles of the outside world rather than to shut them out as if they don't exist.
And it's because of those people that the film manages to work as well as it does. Warts and all, the film is very reminiscent of those classics produced under Spielberg's Amblin banner, and so it's only natural that it would find an immediate surrogate in Wade. Everyone has a reason for flocking to the Oasis, Wade's being his poor lifestyle in the Stacks, a Columbus set city of mobile home trailers piled on top of each other like Jenga blocks, living with his aunt and the string of her awful boyfriends. Wade can hardly be called idealistic, having little real plan in the event he even finds Halliday's egg, and burdened by a naivete and forsaking of the Oasis' anonymity by sinking further into the blind nostalgia surrounding him. To be honest, I really can't find myself caring about Wade, despite the clear best efforts of Tye Sheridan. He isn't without depth, but he simply feels like a bland stand-in protagonist without much in the way of variation (but that's still a thankful step up from his grating book counterpart).
It almost makes you wish his female co-star, Art3mis aka. Sam Cook played by Olivia Cooke, was the lead character. Hers is a focus and character build that gives the movie a tremendous drive, having come from a similarly broken background giving her a fuming hatred for IOI, willing to defend the Oasis even if intentionally keeping herself detached from it. It mainly comes down to the power of Cooke's performance, and she graces it with this irresistible wit, charm, command, compassion, and no shame in directly cutting through the hotheaded and non-thinking BS on Wade's or anyone else's part, managing to subvert and rise above what could easily have become the typical Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Elsewhere, you've got solid support from Ben Mendelsohn who enjoyably gets to chew scenery as IOI's villainous head, Lena Waithe as the sarcastic friend and occasional shoulder Angel to Wade, and Simon Pegg in a small, but crucial appearance as the forgotten other half of Halliday's empire.
But heady those ideas for the film may be, it's the pure sense of fun that the film delivers on where it truly shines. It's clear that motion-capture brings out this new and exuberant second life in Spielberg, bringing the fantastical elements and crowd-pleasing action to life in the same thrilling fashion he managed with Tintin, and pushing all of his toys together like an excited kid at Christmas. The film's plentiful action scenes that range from dangerous city race where vehicles are chased down by King Kong, to an extended set-piece that pays tribute to one of his closest friends that I dare not spoil, that perfectly encapsulates the film's glorious entertainment value. Often this can feel indulgent, and the film is no stranger to unevenness, with clunky exposition and presentation bloat (it certainly feels it 140 minute runtime), but these were relatively minor to what was such a thoroughly enjoyable time at the movies.
It won't rank among the finest efforts in his oeuvre, but Ready Player One is another giddy and endearing jewel in Spielberg's string of successes. It can be best encapsulated as "pure fun", wearing its faults and geeky childlike imagination like a badge, taking us right back to that enchanting wonder of films like Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and all of those fondly regarded classics of their era. I just had so much fun watching it.
**** / *****
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