* * *
When we boot up our PCs and
game consoles, we have the opportunity to possess control of characters,
worlds, and scenarios beyond our wildest fantasies. There’s a word for this:
escapism. Some may say it is apathetic. I say it is essential for our wellbeing
(to an extent, of course). Sometimes the world just plain sucks, even more so
when we have no control over what goes on. If somebody were to ask me why
something as seemingly silly as a video game is so important to so many people,
I would direct them to Ready Player One.
Beneath the overpopulation of nostalgia, there is a heartwarming ode to gaming
culture that is irresistible.
The year is 2045, and the
world has taken a dystopic turn, confining citizens into territory called the
Stacks: shabby trailers stacked high on scaffolding (imagine what a trailer
park in Blade Runner would look
like). It is what it is, at this point. An oddball computer genius named James
Halliday (Mark Rylance) has offered solace with a vast VR world known as the
Oasis, and everybody visits the Oasis on a regular basis – I don’t think its
hyperbole to say ‘everybody’. Unfortunately, Halliday is no longer among the
living, but he has left behind a legacy in the form of a challenge –
cryptically hidden within the Oasis are three challenges. The reward: three
keys that will grant whoever discovers them complete control over the Oasis.
Only one challenge has been unlocked, but nobody has beaten it yet.
Our hero is Wade Watts (Tye
Sheridan), who ventures the Oasis as Parzival. He is rarely without his best
friend Aech (Lena Waithe), who looks like a cross between God of War’s Kratos and Imperator Furiosa. Wade is obsessed with
winning the challenge. These two are soon joined by Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), a
rogue spirit that catches Wade’s heart. Also obsessed with winning Halliday’s
challenge is Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), who runs the big bad IOI
Corporation and wants the Oasis for big bad corporate nonsense.
Ready Player One is the latest cinematic rollercoaster from the defining
and beloved Steven Spielberg. Wait, did I say rollercoaster? Make that the entire theme park. The Oasis a world so
animated, so colorful, so fun that we so badly want to be a part of, to the
point that I felt like I was on a leash (and not in a kinky way). As awesomely
spectacular as the Oasis is, I couldn’t exactly call it imaginative.
Ready Player One is an orgasm of ’80s and ‘90s pop culture
references. I don’t think there’s one shot in the entire movie that doesn’t
have some sort of reference to something – spot every single reference in Ready Player One; now there’s a challenge! But strip away all
of the various movie and video game references, and while the Oasis would still
have something going for it, it wouldn’t be quite the same without our favorite
pop culture relics.
Ironically, there is a
terrific sequence that puts a marvelous spin on this pop-culture indulgence
where our heroic trio are transported into The
Shining. This scene may not work for those that haven’t seen Kubrick’s masterpiece
(and shame on you if you haven’t), but it works so incredibly well for those
that have, not to mention that it’s quite an achievement in intermixing CGI and
superimposition (the cinematic world around our heroes even has that grain to
it). It’s also hilarious to see one of our characters obliviously stumble into
the horrific bathroom of Room 237. Oh, if only they’d seen the movie.
This is not the kind of
nostalgia that serves in place of substance: there’s a genuine passion for all
of these pop culture elements that shape our imagination and how they make us
who we are. It may be a little eye-roll inducing at times, but it’s just having
pure Spielbergian fun, and it’s difficult not to be won over by that.
What did not win me over were
the characters. Granted, they’ve all got enough personality to keep things from
slogging, but they’re not memorable enough to give the film that extra ounce of
strength it could use. While Aech is a great sidekick, Wade has little to no
charisma and just seems kind of…there. This makes his relationship with Art3mis
all the less compelling (though it does make for a great debate about virtual
relationships versus real ones). Spielberg tries to recreate the John Hughes
suit-and-tie villain with Nolan Sorrento, but there’s no real motivation for
his evilness other than that he’s a corporate bad guy. What’s the threat here?
Micro-transactions?
Ambitiously, Ready Player One bounces from the
virtual world to the real world, and the climax involves both simultaneously (quite
wonderfully, I might add). For all of the attention that went into the virtual
world, it would have been nice to have seen a bit more from the dystopian
future that our heroes inhabit, but it seems to exist to remind us that the
Oasis is just VR. As for the dystopic angle, just a means of playing up the
whole “escapist” theme. It works fine, but a bit more depth into the film’s
world would have significantly strengthened it.
On my way out of the theater,
there was a trio of young men extolling that “Spielberg has brought the magic
back” with Ready Player One. That got
me thinking: there really is a magic to Spielberg’s movies that only he is
capable of casting. Ready Player One is
no exception, but this is not Spielberg’s most enchanting spell – the nostalgia
overload and lack of memorable characters will have plenty of detractors, and I
don’t blame them. As for me, I had a bloody good time traversing the Oasis. Hell,
I’m already contemplating making another visit to the theater this weekend for
a 3D showing, so let that say something about the enjoyment factor of the movie
(especially considering I don’t like spending the extra money for a 3D movie).
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