[yasr_overall_rating]
When the creator of a virtual reality world called the OASIS dies, he releases a video in which he challenges all OASIS users to find his Easter Egg, which will give the finder his fortune.
I’ll admit: I had my concerns about this project. A book so full of ’80s pop culture references it’s pornographic being taken over as a feature film by the Beard himself? I’ve read the book. Several times. I will say it is a perfect beach read. You can pick it up, set it down, and burn through it in a matter of hours. So my trepidation grew when I heard Spielberg himself was tackling something I thought best left on the shelf. It’s been awhile since he’s made a summer movie that lives up to the standard he set for himself way back when. I have never been more happy to be wrong.
To frame my experience with “Ready Player One” I attended the grand opening of the new Alamo Drafthouse in Lake Highlands. The whole evening was “Ready Player One” themed. Before you walk in from the expansive parking lot three unique cars greeted me: The Delorean from “Back to the Future,” the “Knight Rider” car, and the “Ghostbusters” mobile. I just recently saw “Back to the Future” so I feel confident when I say it’s incredibly accurate.
Inside the lobby, video games greeted me. The games mentioned in the book greeted me, in fact. I dabbled in Joust, Adventure, Black Tiger, and several other arcade classics. Games I’d only heard described in the book took on a life of their own and actually helped me appreciate the book more. Most importantly, an HTC Vive VR headset greeted me. I have never played VR and I admit I was fairly skeptical.
I tried on the headset and controllers. My vision filled up with robots to shoot, the biggest obstacle being the mechanics of actual gameplay and not graphics or some other simple challenge. I LOVED playing the VR set. You guys, this stuff is what we’re all going to be playing in three years. Maybe four. I reached down to my hips to grab guns, I stepped to the side to dodge bullets. My three minutes inside the VR headset proved to be the second most valuable experience that evening. I drank a beer or two and snacked on small hors d’oeuvres: bacon burgers, mushrooms pizza slices, and chicken meatballs.
My anticipation grew as all of us sat down in our seats in the theater. The recliner seats in their 150-person theater drew back as if I was entering my own haptic rig, and the screen filled my vision. I vaguely recall plowing through an order of hummus and veggies right before the movie starts then leaning back because I wanted to SOAK this movie in.
Spielberg is in top form with this one. His trademark aesthetic comes back in full force with this movie. Incredible scoring from Alan Silvestri adds simple trumpet flares to camera jokes. The infamous ‘oner’ comes on full display multiple times whether we’re just traveling down The Stacks (the dystopic trailer park in 2045 Columbus Ohio) or in a full car chase scrambling in between dinosaurs, King Kong, and multiple Sixer-mobiles. His adults are incompetent or villainous. His heroes are nerdy. Incredibly, a movie about people abandoning their real lives for virtual reality instills in us the value of going back to the Real World (something the book never effectively does.) This movie reminds me that Spielberg’s at his best when he’s endorsing human emotion through the eyes of kids. Man, he really makes me feel like a kid again with his movies.
More importantly, this is Spielberg for a new generation, by a new generation. Every actor on this project turns in an incredible performance. Tye Sheridan could easily play the confident hero (and he does in the Virtual world) his geekiness comes through and we really feel for him. Lena Waithe, Olivia Cooke, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki all shine in this movie as a twenty-first-century version of the Lost Boys but also as warriors. Stars that shined surprisingly bright? TJ Miller (who I never thought I’d see in a Spielberg movie of all places) playing a watered down version of himself sure, but just the right person for that role. Mark Rylance, above all, grounds this whole movie with his sympathetic performance as man-child inventor, James Halliday. It is his easter egg everybody’s hunting for, and he created the OASIS. The entire story hinges upon Halliday leaving clues behind and every scene we visit him we learn how sad and lonely he must have felt. As if that wasn’t enough, Simon Pegg stars opposite Rylance in every flashback. His American accent stands up to the test. Finally, Ben Mendelssohn takes us home as the bad guy amongst all of this. Look… I want to go on and on about each and every actor but suffice to say: everyone did well.
The story whisks you along at a brisk pace, melding CGI with real life in such a potent mix the two start to blend. Never too much in one direction or the other (another thing I think the book did a poor job of.) I really enjoyed the seamless integration and after ping-ponging so much between the two they really did start to blend. In the close-up shots of our CGI characters, I forgot (a few times) I was staring at a computer image.
The soundtrack rips right out of the ’80s. The sound design runs par for the Spielberg course. That car race sequence? Oh, my goodness. Different engines roar, tires screech, dinosaurs roar, giant gorillas chuff. It was a smorgasbord of direct audio editing and mixing. I had a faint eargasm.
My complaints? A love story that, while still earned, feels a little on-the-nose. But this is Spielberg we’re talking about. When he makes good movies it’s because he wears his heart on his sleeve. This is Spielberg filmmaking in his top form. Now a new generation can have a property to latch on to. In other people’s hands, the material would’ve sunk everyone involved. In Spielberg’s hands, we move quickly past the culture nostalgia and straight into the plot. Not once does a reference feel pointed or silly. They‘re part and parcel of the world of the OASIS. There are so many references in it too that I don’t doubt the IMDb page is struggling to keep up.
It’s good to see my generation’s filmmaker is back at it after a recent couple of big-budget duds. His bona fides are all there and his status as an excellent filmmaker comes reaffirmed by this movie. It soars way above the book zigging when the book zagged and honing its message to answer the biggest narrative questions. A stellar cast. An incredible visual and aural production. I will definitely go see this twice. Do yourselves a favor and go see this in theaters. It’s the best way to see something this big and expansive and illuminating and exciting.
Now playing in theaters
3.4k
20k
1.5k
1.3k