4/5 Star Rating
Film maker, Steven Spielberg is back and certainly on top form with his latest, exciting science fiction adventure movie, Ready Player One. The film is an adaptation of a book by the same name, which was originally written by author Ernest Cline in 2011.
Official Ready Player One Film Trailer - Courtesy of YouTube
Synopsis
In order to save a virtual reality world called 'The Oasis', teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) is on a mission to find three keys which are hidden in this alternative realm. Each key is hidden behind a variety of puzzling tasks set by The Oasis' creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance).
Review and Film Recap
The story of Ready Player One takes place in the year 2045 (27 years from now) and the world as we know it, no longer exists. Earth is over populated and is in a dismal state. The film's main central character, Wade (Sheridan) is an underprivileged young man, who resides in a trailer park in Columbus, Ohio with his aunt and her abusive partner. In the original story within Cline's novel, Wade and his family actually lived in Oklahoma. The history of how the world got to this almost derelict state isn't directly identified within the film although there are a lot of mentions about 'The Bandwidth Riots'. To escape the reality of this dim outlook on the world, humans would connect themselves to virtual reality suits and headsets to visit the famous Oasis.
The Oasis is a virtual world that was created by James Halliday, a socially awkward being with a brilliant mind who is portrayed by the very versatile Mark Rylance. To me he's the lovable character (who also looks like a tiny sack of potatoes) 'Flop' in the children's television series Bing!
James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg)
In the Oasis your only limit is your imagination. Anything can happen! You can meet other gamers, relax or party in bars and clubs, or even join in a race where King Kong and a T-Rex (a nod to the Jurassic Park films) are obstructions within the challenge. When Sheridan's character is in the Oasis his avatar's name is Parzival. He meets online gamers, makes friends and even falls in love with someone he's never even met. The Oasis itself looks visually stunning, although this meant a lot more effort for GCI teams working on this movie. When I originally saw the trailer for this film, I thought to myself it looked a little the Final Fantasy games graphics (which I love), but then because of this comparison, I also thought of the awful Final Fantasy film which was released back in 2001. So that kind of made me shrug this film off. Then I realised that the almighty Steven Spielberg (all hail SS!) was the film's director. There was no way I was pushing aside one of his masterpieces.
Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) wearing his VR gear
Ready Player One is loaded with pop-culture references, particularly from the 80s and 90s. To be perfectly honest you will probably need to revise your pop-culture before seeing this film if you aren't already familiar with it. Otherwise you may not understand half of it, which may ruin the experience of watching this amazing feature. For example, within the Oasis you can see a squadron of Halo Spartans, The Iron Giant, Harley Quinn lounging in a night club, Back To The Future's famous Delorean and there's even a reference to the Millennium Falcon being one of the best unlockable achievements within this virtual world. I pretty much sat in my seat playing the pop culture version of Where's Wally? throughout the entire length of the film. I'm pretty sure I had spotted all of the main characters from the Arkham Batman games. There's even a brilliant scene where the characters avatars are trapped in a simulation of the horror film "The Shining".
Left: Parzival, Right: Artemis
The film however isn't just about gaming and all things nerdy. The story also includes a little romance too between Wade/Parzival and Artemis, a well known blogger who's real name is Samantha (Olivia Cooke). This kind of brings the film "back to reality" (pun intended). Although Artemis/Samantha is often knocking Parzival/Wade back when it comes to the two of them getting close. She tells him that they cannot meet as she feels that he will not like what he sees, explaining that she isn't as attractive as her avatar. This comes across like she has some big deep dark secret that she has to hide and it was a little disappointing to see that what she was hiding was a birth mark surrounding one of her eyes, which she keeps hidden with her hair. I understand that things like that can cause insecurities, which is perfectly reasonable, but I felt that the film built this up a little too much considering that was the reason why she didn't want to meet in the real world.
Left: Samantha (Olivia Cooke), Right: Wade (Tye Sheridan)
Of course there is a villain within this story. In Ready Player One we know him to be Nolan Sorrento. Sorrento is played by Ben Mendelsohn who most people also know as Orson Krennic in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Sorrento has a lot of similarities to that of Krennic, he's aggressive, impatient, impulsive and just plain mean. Ok, so who is this big baddie of the movie? Nolan Sorrento is a CEO of a software company called Innovative Online Industries which is more commonly known as 'IOI'. IOI is a rival company to that of James Halliday (Rylance) who want to take what they feel they deserve when it comes to ownership and the running of the Oasis. And this business man will do whatever it takes to get his way. Even endangering the lives of Wade, his friends and his family. Also like everyone else in this world Sorrento has an avatar of his own. His avatar alter ego is not that impressive nor imaginative or original, he's a well built man in a suit just like Sorrento himself. Although I did giggle when I first saw this avatar as it looked just like the American actor Patrick Warburton.
CEO of Innovative Online Industries Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn)
This adaptation may have been a bit of a risk to bring to life on the big screen, but to be honest, it totally works! It completely outweighed my expectations. It is a movie that is not to be missed, it really is something different and offers many different genres all in one place.
Battle scene within The Oasis - How many characters can you recognise?
I enjoyed the film so much that I have actually purchased the book. This is one film I highly recommend.
* Disclaimer: (All images are courtesy of Google Images)