Director:Â Steven Spielberg
Cast:Â Tye Sheridan, Hannah John-Kamen, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Olivia Cooke, Simon Pegg
Rating: 12A
Running time: 139 minsÂ
Release Date:Â 29/03/2018
Never has a movie started with a fist bump of 80’s hair rock nostalgia as hard as Steven Spielberg‘s latest science fiction adapation of the Ernest Cline’s nerd popular novel Ready Player One. Over two hours of CGI generated characters living in a VR created multiverse populated by seemingly any and all video game, film and television pop culture references. Popcorn summer movies are in definition not given accolades for their characterisation, story arcs or deep societial meaning, but this does what James Cameron’s Avatar did before it and transforms the landscape. This should be the revolution that’ll cause the stakes to be higher when it comes to action set pieces, flawless motion capture and challenging those incredible Marvel blockbusters.
Set within the year 2045, after wars decimating the spirit of the youth and the wide-spread nature of virtual reality created content becoming seemingly the norm, everybody inhabits this world called Oasis. Created by James Halliday, played brillantly by Mark Rylance, a cross between Dumbledore, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg of social outcast, awkardness and humble natured, there lies a challenge of finding the ultimate Easter Egg, solving puzzles, using Halliday’s own mind to help win over a trillion dollars and the sole ownership of Oasis itself.
Enter Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), the average nerd, with a thirst for Halliday knowledge and facts, with his characters avatar named Parzival, goes along with this quest to find the hidden egg with the help of pals H, Sho and Daito. Competing against him from the start but soon becoming his love interest, Artemis, played by Olivia Cooke also helps the team through the various levels they must go through to obtain the three keys. Whilst it may seem easy, traversing New York in a city destroying death race featring a T-REX and King Kong, then reinacting the film The Shining within the Over Look Hotel, to finally a massive gunfight between hundreds of thousands of players, some including Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorchees, the Chucky Doll, The Iron Giant, Master Chief from Halo and many more, his biggest menance is the competing company IOI. Masterfully operated by Ben Mendelsohn’s Nolan Sorrento, it’s a race against time to gain the three keys to become the leaders of the free world essentially
This is an outright fun movie, which zips along at a wonderful pace, brilliantly told storytelling which gets you hooked from the get-go. It’s a popcorn eating flick which has funny moments, spectacularly action set pieces, engaging romance and believable characters. It’s one perfectly designed for all ages, those who lived in the 80’s growing up, to the kids nowadays who are steeped in these references and callbacks. I’ll happily be seeing it again and again in the biggest screens possible!
