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Update: April 18, 2018
Dragonlord’s Review of Steven Spielberg's READY PLAYER ONE
Bottom Line: A visual spectacle (and an eyesore concurrently) and overloaded with pop culture references, Ready Player One is a fun nostalgic ride but lacks a subversive wit and a stronger narrative to take advantage of its offbeat premise.
[Note: I have not read Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One novel but due to the pedigree of the filmmaker involved as well as the exciting sci-fi premise, my expectations are naturally (and maybe unfairly) higher and a 8 or 9 star rating is anticipated. This review is a bit unorthodox in the way it is structured like a plot summary but listing down the flaws that drag the score down.]
In the year 2045, most of the population escape the harshness of the dystopian society by plugging into the OASIS, a virtual reality world where you can be anyone and do anything. The late James Halliday, co-creator of the OASIS, has created a quest game inside the virtual world where the winner who gets the Easter Egg will gain sole proprietorship of the OASIS. Players would have to complete three hidden quests to gain three keys that will lead them to the Easter Egg.
The movie opens with our protagonist Wade Watts wading through the Stacks, a slum-like area where a bunch of trailers are stacked on top one another. He then goes in to his hideaway in a junkyard to log in to the OASIS. Before we go the virtual world, let’s talk about the first misstep of the movie and that is the casting of Tye Sheridan as Wade. The young actor’s default facial expression always look like he’s sullen and depressed. (Tye should thank his Hollywood agent for not being typecast in bully or psycho killer roles because he really does look the part.)
Second misstep of the movie is Wade doesn’t really do anything endearing or anything subtly noteworthy in the opening that connects him to the audience. Tye does a pretty decent job throughout the film but imagine if someone peppy and oozing with charisma like Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Tom Holland was the lead. Someone like Tom Holland would have elevated Ready Player One to another level. It’s ironic because my casting proposal is similar to what would have happened to Amblin’s Back to the Future if they didn’t recast Eric Stoltz with Michael J. Fox.
[FYI to those not familiar with the Back to the Future production, Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly. After two weeks of shooting, they thought Stoltz was wrong for the part and that he gave off a more serious vibe. So they recast the role and gave it to the fun-loving Michael J. Fox.]
The OASIS looks great but there’s an uncanny valley element when it comes to the main avatar characters. It is especially jarringly noticeable when the movie switches constantly from the real world to the OASIS. Not as extreme as revulsion but there’s a subconscious rejection on my part that prevents me from fully immersing with the OASIS and its characters.
In the OASIS, you’ll be immediately bombarded with pop culture references with avatars of famous characters from video games, movies and animation, as well as some of the iconic items or vehicles from those mediums. The Easter eggs and references flash by on screen so fast that if you blink you’ll miss them. It’s fun at first spotting all the well-known avatars but the novelty wears off after a while and it becomes too distracting and you slowly comprehend that these are just avatars and not the real McCoy.
The most disappointing realization about these pop culture characters is that these are just avatars and not the embodiment of the characters themselves. It means that the Freddie Krueger you see is in the OASIS is just some schmuck from the real world using the Nightmare on Elm Street icon as his/her avatar. It’s different from Wreck-It Ralph or The LEGO Movie where Zangief is really the real Russian wrestler from Street Fighter or Batman is really the Dark Knight (sort of).
Wade goes by the avatar Parzival in the OASIS where he and thousands of users like him called Gunters are on a quest to find the Halliday’s Easter Egg. Parzival’s best friend in the OASIS is Aech, a cybernetic Orc who is also a virtual mechanic. Parzival frequently visits the Halliday Archives, a virtual library with 3D recordings of James Halliday’s life and work, in order to search for clues on how to win the game.
Parzival and Aech participate in a virtual street race over New York City filled with shifting cityscapes, traps and monsters and whoever wins gets the first key. Five years upon its discovery, no one has been able to win the race. This street race marks the first major action piece of the movie and it’s a letdown. The race itself was fast and furious (yes I went there) but there’s an overall sense of hollowness to it all. There was no hype or build-up leading up to the race. It’s fun to see the T-Rex and King Kong show up but the actual race felt rushed and lacked any drama. Stuff just blew up and you just watch vehicles zigzagging through the course with a sense of detachment. One thing that could have tremendously helped the race scene is if there was a team of commentators giving a play-by-play of the race.
[Warning: SPOILERS below and up to the end of the review.]
After losing the race, Parzival goes back to the Halliday Archives and takes note of Halliday muttering about “going backwards really fast.” This Eureka moment would have had more impact if Halliday’s line was introduced earlier in the film and slyly buried under the other information; in this way, the audience would feel a sense of reward to figuring out the clue rather than being a passive passenger and not feeling like the movie is just making up stuff as they go along.
Parzival tests his theory and drives backwards in the next race which opens up a secret underground tunnel that safely leads all the way to the finish line. Parzival wins the first key and is given a clue to the next quest. Parzival’s victory isn’t as satisfying or rewarding as his path to the finish line was without any struggles or obstacles. It would have been cooler if Parzival drove his car in reverse in the actual race course and go through all the extreme challenges and won.
Parzival and his newfound friend Art3mis go dancing in a virtual club. The actual dancing was awkwardly executed. Afterwards Parzival declares his love to Art3mis in a cringey and rushed scene but Art3mis spurns him (and rightfully so). In the outside world, Wade meets the real Art3mis named Samantha Cook. Samantha feels she's ugly due to her port-wine stain birthmark on her right eye. The whole thing is just silly because 1.) she is actually a very pretty girl and 2.) her birthmark seems to be stylishly placed over her eye that it fits with the cyberpunk culture.
Later on Parzival forms a clan alongside Aech, Art3mis, Sho and Daito and call themselves the “High Five.” Ar3temis figures out the location of the second quest based on the clue and eventually get the second key. Again there is something disengaging about how they were able to solve the mystery and feels they’re just making up stuff as they go along. It is especially glaring if it’s the first time you watched Ready Player One but suspect that you’ll learn to accept it better on repeat viewings.
The second quest leads them to revisit Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, complete with a fantastic recreational of the Overlook Hotel. It’s a pretty cool quest but the horror aspect isn’t as effective due to the CGI representation of the characters which leads me to conclude that the movie would have been better if they got real actors to portray some of the avatars in the OASIS.
The third quest leads them to Planet Doom in the OASIS where IOI Corporate CEO Nolan Sorrento and his army of Sixers have blocked the castle from anyone entering. What was supposed to be a rousing and inspirational speech, Parzival gives a tepid rallying call to arms to all the OASIS denizens. The deliverance of the lines could have been written better, not to mention less corny.
The massive battle in Castle Anorak was enjoyable and the immense amount of lightning-quick appearances by pop culture characters made it fun and an eyesore simultaneously. Seeing the Iron Giant and Mechagodzilla in battle was very cool but the biggest wow moment in the entire movie for me was witnessing the Gundam mobile suit in action. With this and Pacific Rim, this is proof-positive that a live-action Gundam movie (or Robotech/Macross, Voltron) can be done and Hollywood needs to get right on this.
In order to get the third key, they have to play the correct Atari 2600 game. They eventually figure out that the correct game is Adventure and that they have to find the Easter Egg within the Atari game in order to win. Unlike the way they solved the first two quests, this one feels more clever because it is based on actual real-life events.
Anorak, Halliday’s avatar, appears and awards Parzival the third key. Parzival uses all three keys to enter a room where a contract awaits to be signed. Parzival thinks it’s another test and refuses to sign the contract. Anorak acknowledges that Parzival has passed the final test. The whole thing about winning the game by not signing the contract feels a bit disingenuous on Halliday’s part. It would have been more reasonable if the movie set it up so that Wade has to sacrifice something in exchange for signing the contract. Plus the final test is pointless since whoever failed the test the first time, will either just try to restart the quest again or tell other people how to win the final test.
Back in the real world, Wade is being chased by IOI’s goons. So Wade’s team drives to the Stacks hoping the rough neighborhood would have his back. Nolan goes in the slum alone and then gets swarmed by a hundred angry people who knew that Nolan was responsible for blowing up a Stack structure that killed several of their own. Nolan whips up a gun and the hundreds of Stack people just move out of his way. Nolan reaches Wade’s van and is about to shoot him. The whole thing just stinks of incompetency. The Stacks are a bunch of pussies! NO ONE even tried to overpower the corporate suit even though they outnumbered him 100 to 1. Worst of all, NO ONE tried to save Wade’s life when Nolan was about to murder him.
In the end, Parzival/Wade receives the coveted Halliday Easter Egg and gains ownership of the OASIS but he chooses to share control of the virtual world with the rest of the High Five. Wade learns the lessons Halliday imparts on him like the importance of forming friendship and connecting with real people in the real world. With all the socio-economical problems this dystopian world faces, Wade’s new ruling to shut down the OASIS two days a week seems futile and ineffectual, akin to putting band-aid on a person suffering a heart attack.
Director Steven Spielberg has done a fabulous job with the film visually but fails to deliver in other areas. Just like his last big budget fantasy outing (The BFG), Ready Player One feels a bit safe. Not only do some of the action beats feel a bit empty, the film lacks an edgy energy and a sharp subversive humor. Sadly Spielberg isn’t hip enough for this material and another filmmaker with a fresher take would have been better suited for Ready Player One.
All of the main cast members are satisfactory with the exception of Olivia Cooke (Art3mis/Samantha Cook) and Ben Mendelsohn (Nolan Sorrento) who were better and stood out more than the rest. As mentioned earlier, Tye Sheridan was adequate but casting someone with more charisma for the lead like Tom Holland would have been the best. It’s too bad they couldn’t plump out Sho and Daito’s characters more since they were an integral part of the High Five.
A big part of the fun is spotting the countless iconic weapons like the Aliens' plasma rifle or the flying glaive from Krull or seeing the seminal vehicles like the bike from Akira or the Serenity spaceship from Firefly or the DeLorean from Back to the Future. If you love the 1980s, you'll be in heaven as you will be bombarded with songs and synth music from that era. Composer Alan Silvestri mashes a lot of memorable movie scores, most noticeably from Back to the Future and Jurassic Park to name a few, to compete the trip down to memory lane.
When it comes to book adaptations, studios sometimes get greedy and unnecessarily split a book into two parts (The Hunger Games 3 & 4, Twilight 4 & 5, Divergent: Allegiant) or in the case of Peter Jackson, too ambitious and create a trilogy of Hobbit films based on one book. Ready Player One is one of the rare instances where Warner Bros. should have been greedier or ambitious and broken it down to three films. The material is rich enough to sustain a trilogy with each movie centering on one of the three quests. [Read more details on proposed Ready Player One trilogy] This would have also provided ample opportunities to flesh out the other High Five members as well as to improve the dynamics between the High Five.
Despite the criticisms and suggestions, Ready Player One is an entertaining nostalgic ride but feels rushed, hollow and could have been a great, epic movie with a few tweaks. Looking forward to a second viewing where a more favorable reception is a possibility since expectations have already been tempered with reality. But for now, I’m going to have to go with my first impression.
Rating: 7/10
Dragonlord’s Review of Steven Spielberg's READY PLAYER ONE
Bottom Line: A visual spectacle (and an eyesore concurrently) and overloaded with pop culture references, Ready Player One is a fun nostalgic ride but lacks a subversive wit and a stronger narrative to take advantage of its offbeat premise.
[Note: I have not read Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One novel but due to the pedigree of the filmmaker involved as well as the exciting sci-fi premise, my expectations are naturally (and maybe unfairly) higher and a 8 or 9 star rating is anticipated. This review is a bit unorthodox in the way it is structured like a plot summary but listing down the flaws that drag the score down.]
In the year 2045, most of the population escape the harshness of the dystopian society by plugging into the OASIS, a virtual reality world where you can be anyone and do anything. The late James Halliday, co-creator of the OASIS, has created a quest game inside the virtual world where the winner who gets the Easter Egg will gain sole proprietorship of the OASIS. Players would have to complete three hidden quests to gain three keys that will lead them to the Easter Egg.
The movie opens with our protagonist Wade Watts wading through the Stacks, a slum-like area where a bunch of trailers are stacked on top one another. He then goes in to his hideaway in a junkyard to log in to the OASIS. Before we go the virtual world, let’s talk about the first misstep of the movie and that is the casting of Tye Sheridan as Wade. The young actor’s default facial expression always look like he’s sullen and depressed. (Tye should thank his Hollywood agent for not being typecast in bully or psycho killer roles because he really does look the part.)
Second misstep of the movie is Wade doesn’t really do anything endearing or anything subtly noteworthy in the opening that connects him to the audience. Tye does a pretty decent job throughout the film but imagine if someone peppy and oozing with charisma like Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Tom Holland was the lead. Someone like Tom Holland would have elevated Ready Player One to another level. It’s ironic because my casting proposal is similar to what would have happened to Amblin’s Back to the Future if they didn’t recast Eric Stoltz with Michael J. Fox.
[FYI to those not familiar with the Back to the Future production, Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly. After two weeks of shooting, they thought Stoltz was wrong for the part and that he gave off a more serious vibe. So they recast the role and gave it to the fun-loving Michael J. Fox.]
The OASIS looks great but there’s an uncanny valley element when it comes to the main avatar characters. It is especially jarringly noticeable when the movie switches constantly from the real world to the OASIS. Not as extreme as revulsion but there’s a subconscious rejection on my part that prevents me from fully immersing with the OASIS and its characters.
In the OASIS, you’ll be immediately bombarded with pop culture references with avatars of famous characters from video games, movies and animation, as well as some of the iconic items or vehicles from those mediums. The Easter eggs and references flash by on screen so fast that if you blink you’ll miss them. It’s fun at first spotting all the well-known avatars but the novelty wears off after a while and it becomes too distracting and you slowly comprehend that these are just avatars and not the real McCoy.
The most disappointing realization about these pop culture characters is that these are just avatars and not the embodiment of the characters themselves. It means that the Freddie Krueger you see is in the OASIS is just some schmuck from the real world using the Nightmare on Elm Street icon as his/her avatar. It’s different from Wreck-It Ralph or The LEGO Movie where Zangief is really the real Russian wrestler from Street Fighter or Batman is really the Dark Knight (sort of).
Wade goes by the avatar Parzival in the OASIS where he and thousands of users like him called Gunters are on a quest to find the Halliday’s Easter Egg. Parzival’s best friend in the OASIS is Aech, a cybernetic Orc who is also a virtual mechanic. Parzival frequently visits the Halliday Archives, a virtual library with 3D recordings of James Halliday’s life and work, in order to search for clues on how to win the game.
Parzival and Aech participate in a virtual street race over New York City filled with shifting cityscapes, traps and monsters and whoever wins gets the first key. Five years upon its discovery, no one has been able to win the race. This street race marks the first major action piece of the movie and it’s a letdown. The race itself was fast and furious (yes I went there) but there’s an overall sense of hollowness to it all. There was no hype or build-up leading up to the race. It’s fun to see the T-Rex and King Kong show up but the actual race felt rushed and lacked any drama. Stuff just blew up and you just watch vehicles zigzagging through the course with a sense of detachment. One thing that could have tremendously helped the race scene is if there was a team of commentators giving a play-by-play of the race.
[Warning: SPOILERS below and up to the end of the review.]
After losing the race, Parzival goes back to the Halliday Archives and takes note of Halliday muttering about “going backwards really fast.” This Eureka moment would have had more impact if Halliday’s line was introduced earlier in the film and slyly buried under the other information; in this way, the audience would feel a sense of reward to figuring out the clue rather than being a passive passenger and not feeling like the movie is just making up stuff as they go along.
Parzival tests his theory and drives backwards in the next race which opens up a secret underground tunnel that safely leads all the way to the finish line. Parzival wins the first key and is given a clue to the next quest. Parzival’s victory isn’t as satisfying or rewarding as his path to the finish line was without any struggles or obstacles. It would have been cooler if Parzival drove his car in reverse in the actual race course and go through all the extreme challenges and won.
Parzival and his newfound friend Art3mis go dancing in a virtual club. The actual dancing was awkwardly executed. Afterwards Parzival declares his love to Art3mis in a cringey and rushed scene but Art3mis spurns him (and rightfully so). In the outside world, Wade meets the real Art3mis named Samantha Cook. Samantha feels she's ugly due to her port-wine stain birthmark on her right eye. The whole thing is just silly because 1.) she is actually a very pretty girl and 2.) her birthmark seems to be stylishly placed over her eye that it fits with the cyberpunk culture.
Later on Parzival forms a clan alongside Aech, Art3mis, Sho and Daito and call themselves the “High Five.” Ar3temis figures out the location of the second quest based on the clue and eventually get the second key. Again there is something disengaging about how they were able to solve the mystery and feels they’re just making up stuff as they go along. It is especially glaring if it’s the first time you watched Ready Player One but suspect that you’ll learn to accept it better on repeat viewings.
The second quest leads them to revisit Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, complete with a fantastic recreational of the Overlook Hotel. It’s a pretty cool quest but the horror aspect isn’t as effective due to the CGI representation of the characters which leads me to conclude that the movie would have been better if they got real actors to portray some of the avatars in the OASIS.
The third quest leads them to Planet Doom in the OASIS where IOI Corporate CEO Nolan Sorrento and his army of Sixers have blocked the castle from anyone entering. What was supposed to be a rousing and inspirational speech, Parzival gives a tepid rallying call to arms to all the OASIS denizens. The deliverance of the lines could have been written better, not to mention less corny.
The massive battle in Castle Anorak was enjoyable and the immense amount of lightning-quick appearances by pop culture characters made it fun and an eyesore simultaneously. Seeing the Iron Giant and Mechagodzilla in battle was very cool but the biggest wow moment in the entire movie for me was witnessing the Gundam mobile suit in action. With this and Pacific Rim, this is proof-positive that a live-action Gundam movie (or Robotech/Macross, Voltron) can be done and Hollywood needs to get right on this.
In order to get the third key, they have to play the correct Atari 2600 game. They eventually figure out that the correct game is Adventure and that they have to find the Easter Egg within the Atari game in order to win. Unlike the way they solved the first two quests, this one feels more clever because it is based on actual real-life events.
Anorak, Halliday’s avatar, appears and awards Parzival the third key. Parzival uses all three keys to enter a room where a contract awaits to be signed. Parzival thinks it’s another test and refuses to sign the contract. Anorak acknowledges that Parzival has passed the final test. The whole thing about winning the game by not signing the contract feels a bit disingenuous on Halliday’s part. It would have been more reasonable if the movie set it up so that Wade has to sacrifice something in exchange for signing the contract. Plus the final test is pointless since whoever failed the test the first time, will either just try to restart the quest again or tell other people how to win the final test.
Back in the real world, Wade is being chased by IOI’s goons. So Wade’s team drives to the Stacks hoping the rough neighborhood would have his back. Nolan goes in the slum alone and then gets swarmed by a hundred angry people who knew that Nolan was responsible for blowing up a Stack structure that killed several of their own. Nolan whips up a gun and the hundreds of Stack people just move out of his way. Nolan reaches Wade’s van and is about to shoot him. The whole thing just stinks of incompetency. The Stacks are a bunch of pussies! NO ONE even tried to overpower the corporate suit even though they outnumbered him 100 to 1. Worst of all, NO ONE tried to save Wade’s life when Nolan was about to murder him.
In the end, Parzival/Wade receives the coveted Halliday Easter Egg and gains ownership of the OASIS but he chooses to share control of the virtual world with the rest of the High Five. Wade learns the lessons Halliday imparts on him like the importance of forming friendship and connecting with real people in the real world. With all the socio-economical problems this dystopian world faces, Wade’s new ruling to shut down the OASIS two days a week seems futile and ineffectual, akin to putting band-aid on a person suffering a heart attack.
Director Steven Spielberg has done a fabulous job with the film visually but fails to deliver in other areas. Just like his last big budget fantasy outing (The BFG), Ready Player One feels a bit safe. Not only do some of the action beats feel a bit empty, the film lacks an edgy energy and a sharp subversive humor. Sadly Spielberg isn’t hip enough for this material and another filmmaker with a fresher take would have been better suited for Ready Player One.
All of the main cast members are satisfactory with the exception of Olivia Cooke (Art3mis/Samantha Cook) and Ben Mendelsohn (Nolan Sorrento) who were better and stood out more than the rest. As mentioned earlier, Tye Sheridan was adequate but casting someone with more charisma for the lead like Tom Holland would have been the best. It’s too bad they couldn’t plump out Sho and Daito’s characters more since they were an integral part of the High Five.
A big part of the fun is spotting the countless iconic weapons like the Aliens' plasma rifle or the flying glaive from Krull or seeing the seminal vehicles like the bike from Akira or the Serenity spaceship from Firefly or the DeLorean from Back to the Future. If you love the 1980s, you'll be in heaven as you will be bombarded with songs and synth music from that era. Composer Alan Silvestri mashes a lot of memorable movie scores, most noticeably from Back to the Future and Jurassic Park to name a few, to compete the trip down to memory lane.
When it comes to book adaptations, studios sometimes get greedy and unnecessarily split a book into two parts (The Hunger Games 3 & 4, Twilight 4 & 5, Divergent: Allegiant) or in the case of Peter Jackson, too ambitious and create a trilogy of Hobbit films based on one book. Ready Player One is one of the rare instances where Warner Bros. should have been greedier or ambitious and broken it down to three films. The material is rich enough to sustain a trilogy with each movie centering on one of the three quests. [Read more details on proposed Ready Player One trilogy] This would have also provided ample opportunities to flesh out the other High Five members as well as to improve the dynamics between the High Five.
Despite the criticisms and suggestions, Ready Player One is an entertaining nostalgic ride but feels rushed, hollow and could have been a great, epic movie with a few tweaks. Looking forward to a second viewing where a more favorable reception is a possibility since expectations have already been tempered with reality. But for now, I’m going to have to go with my first impression.
Rating: 7/10
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