READY PLAYER ONE NON-SPOILER REVIEW
The film Ready Player One focuses on Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), a boy living with his aunt in Ohio, in 2045. With nowhere to go, Wade spends his time like everyone else on Earth in the virtual reality world of the Oasis, a space where anything is possible. With the creator of the Oasis, Halliday (Mark Rylance) passing away, Wade goes on a quest with his friends Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), Aech (Lena Waihe), Daito (Win Moriski), and Sho (Philip Zhao), to find the three hidden keys Halliday left so he can gain access to the Oasis. With the corporation, "IOI" out for the keys in their plan to own and monetize the Oasis, Wade and his friends have to fight for the Oasis in the virtual world and in real life.
Ready Player One is heavily based on nostalgia, and it works in a number of different ways. The 1980's pop culture heavily influenced this film, from the references mostly being from that decade, as well as the story, the cast, and the visual techniques used. Within the film, the story has the main kid or teen protagonist who finds a diverse group of heroes to fight a corporation, feels very E.T, and Goonies. The film does thrive off this storytelling, as there is a lot going on, and it allows you to focus on more than the story in the frame. The villain of the film does also feel a little one-dimensional, like the villains from the Goonies, and sort of like ET. That is a little complaint, but it also emphasizes that this film is influenced by the 80's.
From the way that the camera panned across the scene, the still shots and the lighting, this film looked as if it were made in the 1980's. It looks really neat on screen, how this was achieved, and illustrates that this film is a love letter to all that went on the in 1980's. The music in this film was great. In the end battle, there was a certain song that I thought that was going to be played, and it happened, and it fitted the scene so perfectly. The film doesn't force music too much into scenes, it more or less lets is flow naturally, which was great.
There were so many references in this film. Being made by Warner Bros. there weren't a lot of Disney properties, only the Iron Giant appeared on screen (as seen in the trailers), and also so name drops. But basically every conceivable video game character, movie character or comic character appears in this scene, and it was insane pointing them out. The film did a good job into not rubbing it all in your face, but they let references be derived from the story itself. When this film comes out on home release, we will have to pause it so many times to see all the references.
The cast of the film was brilliant. We got a sense for these characters and where they are in this almost dystopia world, and that goes well in contrast with them in the Oasis. The main cast members all get a fair amount of screen time, I do feel like some characters could have had more time on screen, as their characters were awesome. But it was all directed in terms of these character's arches in the film.
In conclusion, Ready Player One is a time capsule of classic Spielberg films and pop culture from the past three decades, and it services everything in a manner where it does not only try to focus on the nostalgia, but it also delivers a fantastic film which is made with the references, characters, and film techniques to homage 80's film, and there was no better director to pull that off than Steven Spielberg. I would recommend seeing this film, and getting it on home release. I will have a spoiler review come out later this week. But have you seen the film? comment below your thoughts if you have. As always thanks for reading, take care.
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