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With its nearly endless stream of visual references to preexisting pop culture properties such as Back to the Future, King Kong and The Shining, Ready Player One is a prime target for extensive criticism. That being said, you can't accuse Warner Brothers of misleading audiences. The marketing campaign promised a huge, colorful 80's nostalgia bomb and that's exactly what the film delivered. For better or worse, every frame of Ready Player One is dedicated to celebrating pop culture escapism. While I found myself routinely cringing at how silly the story was, this is an incredibly sincere love letter to entertainment fandom and how getting invested in these fictional worlds helps people get away from the depressing cruelty of the real world that I just couldn't hate.
The surface level enjoyment I got out of Ready Player One can pretty much entirely be attributed to Steven Spielberg. Bringing the virtual reality world of The OASIS to life is a job that the iconic director was born to tackle. You can practically see him smiling from behind the camera as he navigates through this visually-rich environment for nearly two and a half hours. Spielberg's gift for staging pure, wondrous spectacle gives the film a brisk sense of momentum that never lets up and helps mask at least some of the soullessness of the human characters (led by Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe and Mark Rylance doing his best Dr. Steve Brule impression) that are behind this vivid digital universe.
While it won't even flirt with receiving a high ranking on my year-end best list, I respect what Ready Player One was able to accomplish. Getting someone like me who isn't a child of the 80's or a big video game fan to buy into this hardcore nerd porn-driven world that I don't have a built-in connection to is a testament to the infectious love Spielberg and screenwriter Zak Penn had for the material. Without the tremendous level of care and craftsmanship they poured into this production, Ready Player One likely would've been nothing more than an obnoxious exercise in fan service that provided me with enough rant fodder to fill the next calendar year. Now, I can only hope that Spielberg will bring the same passion and visual flare he displayed here to the new Indiana Jones movie that he's currently developing.
The surface level enjoyment I got out of Ready Player One can pretty much entirely be attributed to Steven Spielberg. Bringing the virtual reality world of The OASIS to life is a job that the iconic director was born to tackle. You can practically see him smiling from behind the camera as he navigates through this visually-rich environment for nearly two and a half hours. Spielberg's gift for staging pure, wondrous spectacle gives the film a brisk sense of momentum that never lets up and helps mask at least some of the soullessness of the human characters (led by Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe and Mark Rylance doing his best Dr. Steve Brule impression) that are behind this vivid digital universe.
While it won't even flirt with receiving a high ranking on my year-end best list, I respect what Ready Player One was able to accomplish. Getting someone like me who isn't a child of the 80's or a big video game fan to buy into this hardcore nerd porn-driven world that I don't have a built-in connection to is a testament to the infectious love Spielberg and screenwriter Zak Penn had for the material. Without the tremendous level of care and craftsmanship they poured into this production, Ready Player One likely would've been nothing more than an obnoxious exercise in fan service that provided me with enough rant fodder to fill the next calendar year. Now, I can only hope that Spielberg will bring the same passion and visual flare he displayed here to the new Indiana Jones movie that he's currently developing.
Grade: B-
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