Ready Player One

I was told that Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One is a brisk, fun read, filled with pop culture references that are integral to its story of a bleak future in which virtual reality is quite preferable to the real world.  In 2018, it was adapted into a flashy motion picture directed by someone quite familiar with this sort of material, Steven Spielberg.  It was an appropriate marriage, and the result was the expected eye-filling good time.  Part of me was hoping there would be something in the story line to inspire, stimulate intellectually, or at least hold my intrigue in between the glitter.  Another part recognized that such was unlikely, that the effects would win out, and that, sadly, there is some truth to the adage that every story has already been told.   It's the spin that a filmmaker employs that distinguishes it.  Did Spielberg come through with something innovative on more than one front?

Honestly, I felt like he was just repeating himself.  Was his attraction to this material the genesis of an effort to pay homage to his earlier movies? To re-mine his glory days? READY PLAYER ONE centers on a hard luck orphan named Wade (Tye Sheridan) who in the year 2045 regularly enters the VR wonderland known as OASIS.  There he seeks to find the Easter egg left by the deceased creator.  This egg will be the gateway to allow one to assume ownership of OASIS and is of course coveted by numerous other players, as well as the slimy CEO of a tech company.  The race, as they say, is on.

Wade will eventually meet the real life counterparts of the avatars he knows from OASIS.  One is a potential love interest.  All resemble rag tag youths who seem inspired by previous Spielberg movies, most notably HOOK, hardly favorable.  Within the virtual reality, players pilot the Delorean from BACK TO THE FUTURE, enlist assistance from the IRON GIANT robot, and attempt to escape the clutches of King Kong.  There are challenges that involve John Hughes trivia and entering the Overlook Hotel from THE SHINING.  These bits of pop alone make this movie worth watching, if that is your sort of thing.

It certainly is mine, and the numerous references surprisingly never become tiresome.  They whisk the movie along, past the predictability of the plot, as tired as it possibly could be.  Is READY PLAYER ONE some sort of latter day metaphor for current events? Probably, but the developments in this screenplay (by Zak Penn and RPO author Ernest Cline) make no real efforts to do anything but service the chases and mayhem. And the effects, which are sensational.  The emotional climax is also quite predictable, and strangely hollow.  Spielberg has fashioned another appealing thrill, but these days his considerable talents are better served for more grown up entertainments like THE POST and LINCOLN.