Robbie K back with another review and tonight it is on movie I have been looking forward to for a very long time. The latest book gone pop culture, tonight’s film is all about the references (and merchandising) as the world seeks out an adequate video game movie to come to life. So, let’s get started with a slight alteration to the style, as I review:
Title: Ready Player One
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Zak Penn
Original Author: Ernest Cline
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn
LIKES:
Acting: Let’s get this like out of the way (as most won’t care). The cast of this highly CGI world is on point in regards to making their characters come to life. Sheridan in particular does a lot of the heavy lifting, balancing the geek, leader, and vulnerable roles all into a nice admirable package. Cooke has the edgy, heroic nature down, a virtual Wonder Woman who combines brain and skills to deliver the sassy goods to the group. These two have wonderful chemistry together, two leaders who incite a rebellion of imagination, accomplishing it with grace that many young actors fail to deliver. Ben Mendelsohn makes a good villain as well, a corporate wannabe who has only the eyes for cash and lacks the brains to go with the brash.
World Creating/Visuals: No surprise here, Spielberg’s team invested a lot of time bringing the world to life. Ready Player One’s visuals are stunning, taking the imagination of Cline’s book and making it pop to life on screen. The various planets all have dynamic visuals to bring each one to life, with exciting, pristine villas grounded by the rugged battlefields of volcanoes. The real world of a future dystopian society is nicely created with their settings and with direction meshes well with our heroes’ journey through the cyberspace. And as for the characters themselves, the team managed to recreate the various pop culture references in fantastic design but adding its own twist to correlate with the movie. The heroes have that video game feel, immersing you further into the virtual reality setting as if you were part of the rebellion.
The Action: The trailers promised action, and by George did it deliver… on most of the movie. Ready Player One starts strong with some action-packed sequences where racing and FPS/Third Person battles reign supreme. The theater shakes with the intensity and brings a promise that the rest of the movie is going to be just as fun. The rest of the sequences semi-deliver on this promise, primarily the final battle that has some incredible parts. Nonetheless, Spielberg’s department did a bang-up job bringing the rush that video games bring, primarily the selling point for seeing it in the theater.
The Nostalgia/Reference Hunting: However, the biggest selling point for me was the thrill of hunting down all the cultural Easter eggs/icons that they paid a fortune to portray. My eyes were busy seeking everything crammed in this movie, trying to see which 80’s icons made the cut. While 80% are video game references, you’ll find various movie, television, and song references shading the oasis, most cleverly brought in to bring life to the scenes in a meaningful way. I’ll admit, the replay value of this movie comes in trying to track down everything hidden, like the Easter egg prize they are all seeking. The key demographic of this movie is going to be the fans, nerds, and gamers, as their eager eyes will enjoy seeing their favorites come together to battle the corrupt evil at hand.
DISLIKES:
The Lack of Challenge: Let’s get this settled, the movie is not the book, and to be fair a movie about the actions of the book might have been duller to the general audience. However, the movie could have taken a page for challenging puzzles and cultural integration, because it didn’t quite execute this component as well. Most of the quests for the key were diluted compared to brainteasing nightmares of the novel, that could have involved more research and diving than what we got. In addition, some of the solutions were a little more like backdoor cheats than true solutions to the impasses at hand.
Character Development: I agree again with my fellow reviewers that the character development suffered a bit as well. Parzival and Art3mis get some decent backstories and growth, but the other characters are sort of thrown into the movie like hamburgers on a flat top. They have those moments that sizzle, only to quickly become fully cooked and dropped back into the background. Even worse, the legendary skills that were boasted in the book/movie are not really delivered for our supporting cast, such a shame really. Not the worst character use, but also not what I had expected.
More Action: Surprise, surprise, Robbie wants more action. Ready Player One’s scenes are incredible at times, almost as if we have visors on our heads and living the game. The problem for me is… they were too short at times and didn’t feel complete for me. I didn’t feel this too much until near the middle of the movie when the film hit a slow snag and could have used one or two battles to liven it up. However, the biggest thing I wanted, was seeing the millions of dollars of references used more than the fleeting glances we got. The moves done were cool but watching Parzival and crew work together with the iconic game crew rather than background noise would have been nice.
I-ROk: This character wasn’t utilized much in the book, so seeing him mentioned in the credits was a surprise. Sadly, they didn’t do much with this character, to the point where he was almost not needed. The gaming community knows about epic hunters, villains, and rogues, but this movie failed to deliver on those grounds, instead getting a sarcastic flop. While the main villain was expected to be a rather incompetent jerk, his prized mercenary should have had a little more bite to back things up. Perhaps then the epic climax might have worked a little better, well that and maybe foregoing the van chase at the end… that wasn’t needed as much.
The VERDICT:
Ready Player One the movie is not the book, and the purists who want that book to real life are going to be disappointed with the changes that were made to liven it up. However, Spielberg’s take on the film works in regards to action, visuals, and giving us the ultimate finder book of geek references. While the story needed some more wit and character development, the main tweaks needed to be using more of their merchandizing, more of their characters, and pushing their villains to be more. Had these elements been more explored, it would have given this movie more of the finesse it was looking for. Still, this adventure deserves a theater run given the special effects.
My scores are:
Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi: 8.5
Movie Overall: 7.5
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