Ready Player One: My movie review.
All I really knew about READY PLAYER ONE was that it was Steven Spielberg’s first science fiction movie in nearly ten years, and as a huge fan of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, RAIDERS, JURASSIC PARK, and MINORITY REPORT, I picked up a copy of Ernest Cline’s novel this past Christmas to read with the anticipation of seeing the movie opening weekend. Spielberg seemed like a natural to direct a book that leaned very heavily into 80’s nostalgia, one that had the plucky young protagonists many of his classics spotlighted.
Yet, after seeing the film, I have come to the conclusion that RPO was really not worthy of Spielberg’s awesome talents, that the man who was the biggest influence (with the possible exception of George Lucas, Michael Jackson and MTV) on pop culture during the Reagan Era should put his efforts into making the RAIDERS OF THE ARK of the 21st Century, rather than make a film filled with Easter Eggs from the days when Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees ruled at the box office and Pac Man was the game to play at the arcade. The premise of the movie, as with the book, is that in a future America where everything has gone to hell, and everybody spends their time on the Oasis, an advanced VR world where you can be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want. When the creator and owner of the Oasis, James Halliday dies, his will states that whoever wins a contest inside the Oasis, will inherit Halliday’s company. The main protagonist is Wade Watts, a young man of meager prospects, who sets out to win the prize, despite competition from fellow hunters (or Gunters as they are called in the book and movie), along the assembled forces of a rival corporation, typical nasty corporate bad guys who will do anything to win. My problem is that this whole plot is a cut and paste from WILLY WONKA, while there is no proper world building inside the Oasis, as it is nothing but references to the 80’s. There are some big changes from the book, starting with the world of 2045, where in the book, the economy has crashed because oil has run out, while in the movie, it is suggested that the Oasis itself is the cause for the decline of civilization because most people just lost interest in reality. In the movie, we never get a real feel for how the dystopian world of 2045 works, or does not work, so we never get a feel for why everyone would just give up and live in a VR world.
To me, seeing all these 80’s references had no emotional impact because they were all outside of context, Chucky might show up, but there is no sense of menace at all; I know people love the Iron Giant, but his appearance does nothing here; characters might end up inside The Overlook from THE SHINING, but that does not mean that it is even remotely frightening. One might get more out of an episode of VH1’s Inside the 80’s. The animation for the avatars, at least according to some hardcore gamers, is not even state of the art; Parzival, Art3mis, and the others simply do not have expressive enough faces to make me care. The best of Spielberg’s plots flow and have tons of heart, RPO simply jerks along in series of confrontations, clashes and chases.
My other big problem is that I don’t care about a VR world, there are simply no stakes for the characters there; I know avatars may get killed in the Oasis, but I know their counterparts in the real world are still alive. King Kong and T-Rex show up in the first race sequence (along with the motorcycle from AKIRA) and I don’t care, because no flesh and blood is at risk. There are a number of plot threads that just don’t play out, such as having the villain, Nolan Sorrento, played by Ben Mendelshon, start out as an intern for Halliday back in the day, then have it never mentioned again. It is implied that the Halliday who greets Wade at the end of the story is something other than an avatar - maybe the sentient part of the Oasis, or even God himself – but it is just left dangling with the answer “No.”
And there is really something sad about watching teens in the future be so obsessed with the pop culture of three decades ago; the 80’s was one of those eras, like the 50’s before it that left such an enormous impression and legacy; the movies, the styles, the music, TV shows, all left a deep and lasting impression on the people who lived through them, especially the young. But nostalgia is not what it used to be, if anyone wants to immerse themselves in the 80’s, all they have to do is take a deep dive on YouTube into the videos of Van Halen, ZZ Top, and Hall & Oates, or stream some selected films of John Hughes, Wes Craven or Spielberg himself.
I shook my head at the scene of hundreds of people on the street with wearing VR headgear as though walking into traffic is not a problem, same for the scene late in the movie, where a gun toting Sorrento confronts a crowd made up of the denizens of a vertical trailer park (called the Stacks) and no one points at least one Saturday Night Special back at him as if in this version of the future, the 2nd Amendment has been repealed.
READY PLAYER ONE is not a bad movie; Spielberg’s technical skills are undiminished after all these years, nobody stages a big scale – or small scale for that matter – action scene better. And his affinity for plucky young characters (the Spielberg kids) is still there; Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke are excellent (especially Cooke), so too are their cohorts Lena Waithe as Aech, Philip Zhao as Sho, and Win Morisaki as Daito. I just wish we had gotten to know them better. Mark Rylance (as Halliday), and Simon Pegg do not fare so well. Only TJ Miller, as a villainous henchman avatar for Sorrento, comes off best among the adult actors.
These days, as it has been pointed out, Spielberg is more comfortable making films about history – LINCOLN, WARHORSE, BRIDGE OF SPIES, THE POST – than in the genre he once dominated so well. That makes me sad, but there is talk about making another Indiana Jones film, even at this late date. Good enough, he owes us for THE CRYSTAL SKULL.
I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords
Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS2
Yet, after seeing the film, I have come to the conclusion that RPO was really not worthy of Spielberg’s awesome talents, that the man who was the biggest influence (with the possible exception of George Lucas, Michael Jackson and MTV) on pop culture during the Reagan Era should put his efforts into making the RAIDERS OF THE ARK of the 21st Century, rather than make a film filled with Easter Eggs from the days when Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees ruled at the box office and Pac Man was the game to play at the arcade. The premise of the movie, as with the book, is that in a future America where everything has gone to hell, and everybody spends their time on the Oasis, an advanced VR world where you can be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want. When the creator and owner of the Oasis, James Halliday dies, his will states that whoever wins a contest inside the Oasis, will inherit Halliday’s company. The main protagonist is Wade Watts, a young man of meager prospects, who sets out to win the prize, despite competition from fellow hunters (or Gunters as they are called in the book and movie), along the assembled forces of a rival corporation, typical nasty corporate bad guys who will do anything to win. My problem is that this whole plot is a cut and paste from WILLY WONKA, while there is no proper world building inside the Oasis, as it is nothing but references to the 80’s. There are some big changes from the book, starting with the world of 2045, where in the book, the economy has crashed because oil has run out, while in the movie, it is suggested that the Oasis itself is the cause for the decline of civilization because most people just lost interest in reality. In the movie, we never get a real feel for how the dystopian world of 2045 works, or does not work, so we never get a feel for why everyone would just give up and live in a VR world.
To me, seeing all these 80’s references had no emotional impact because they were all outside of context, Chucky might show up, but there is no sense of menace at all; I know people love the Iron Giant, but his appearance does nothing here; characters might end up inside The Overlook from THE SHINING, but that does not mean that it is even remotely frightening. One might get more out of an episode of VH1’s Inside the 80’s. The animation for the avatars, at least according to some hardcore gamers, is not even state of the art; Parzival, Art3mis, and the others simply do not have expressive enough faces to make me care. The best of Spielberg’s plots flow and have tons of heart, RPO simply jerks along in series of confrontations, clashes and chases.
My other big problem is that I don’t care about a VR world, there are simply no stakes for the characters there; I know avatars may get killed in the Oasis, but I know their counterparts in the real world are still alive. King Kong and T-Rex show up in the first race sequence (along with the motorcycle from AKIRA) and I don’t care, because no flesh and blood is at risk. There are a number of plot threads that just don’t play out, such as having the villain, Nolan Sorrento, played by Ben Mendelshon, start out as an intern for Halliday back in the day, then have it never mentioned again. It is implied that the Halliday who greets Wade at the end of the story is something other than an avatar - maybe the sentient part of the Oasis, or even God himself – but it is just left dangling with the answer “No.”
And there is really something sad about watching teens in the future be so obsessed with the pop culture of three decades ago; the 80’s was one of those eras, like the 50’s before it that left such an enormous impression and legacy; the movies, the styles, the music, TV shows, all left a deep and lasting impression on the people who lived through them, especially the young. But nostalgia is not what it used to be, if anyone wants to immerse themselves in the 80’s, all they have to do is take a deep dive on YouTube into the videos of Van Halen, ZZ Top, and Hall & Oates, or stream some selected films of John Hughes, Wes Craven or Spielberg himself.
I shook my head at the scene of hundreds of people on the street with wearing VR headgear as though walking into traffic is not a problem, same for the scene late in the movie, where a gun toting Sorrento confronts a crowd made up of the denizens of a vertical trailer park (called the Stacks) and no one points at least one Saturday Night Special back at him as if in this version of the future, the 2nd Amendment has been repealed.
READY PLAYER ONE is not a bad movie; Spielberg’s technical skills are undiminished after all these years, nobody stages a big scale – or small scale for that matter – action scene better. And his affinity for plucky young characters (the Spielberg kids) is still there; Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke are excellent (especially Cooke), so too are their cohorts Lena Waithe as Aech, Philip Zhao as Sho, and Win Morisaki as Daito. I just wish we had gotten to know them better. Mark Rylance (as Halliday), and Simon Pegg do not fare so well. Only TJ Miller, as a villainous henchman avatar for Sorrento, comes off best among the adult actors.
These days, as it has been pointed out, Spielberg is more comfortable making films about history – LINCOLN, WARHORSE, BRIDGE OF SPIES, THE POST – than in the genre he once dominated so well. That makes me sad, but there is talk about making another Indiana Jones film, even at this late date. Good enough, he owes us for THE CRYSTAL SKULL.
I am an indie author and my latest novel is ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964. It is available at the following:
http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m on Amazon
http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH at Smashwords
Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmgS2
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