Review: Ready Player One

Set in Ohio in 2045, Tye Sheridan (in his least compelling turn to date) is a young gamer who lives in a crappy part of the town. He gets to escape his existence somewhat through an avatar called Parzival as part of a hugely popular virtual reality multi-player RPG (role-playing game) called OASIS. It basically amounts to a computerised “Yogi’s Space Race” or “Wacky Races”. It’s how the lower socioeconomic class generally makes a living through OASIS’ prize rewards for gameplay. With the recent passing of OASIS’ Willy Wonka-esque co-creator (Mark Rylance), things are about to get interesting in OASIS. Rylance had no heirs, and thus set up a virtual treasure hunt for OASIS players where the ultimate prize is the multi-million dollar inheritance and the keys to the kingdom: Control of OASIS. Obviously Sheridan’s gonna want in on that, as does a skilled player so far only known through the avatar Art3mis (Olivia Cooke). Also taking an interest is Rylance’s former colleague Ben Mendelsohn, who now runs a soulless company called Innovative Online Industries and has the most nefarious of intentions.

On his game, there isn’t a better living director than Steven Spielberg in my opinion. If we’re going all-time, he’s also up there with Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet, and John Sturges amongst my favourite ever directors. Although your mileage may differ on the specifics, he has made masterpieces like “Jaws”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and “E.T.”, as well as very fine films like “Schindler’s List”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Duel”, “War of the Worlds”, and “Minority Report” (You can sub in “Close Encounters” and “The Colour Purple” for a couple of those if you’d like, I’m not particularly a fan of either). However, as great as Spielberg can be, there’s two Spielberg’s. This second Spielberg is obviously the same man, but he’s the guy who gave us disappointments like “1941”, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, “Hook”, “Jurassic Park”, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park II”, “Munich”, “The Post”, and turds like “A.I.”, “War Horse”, and “The Adventures of Tintin”. I still think any filmmaker would kill to have Spielberg’s resumé, but there’s no doubt he’s had some clunkers and disappointments. This 2018 adaptation of the somewhat divisive YA fiction novel is somewhere closer to the ‘turds’ category, I’m afraid. In theory, a technology-obsessed director with a childlike vision should’ve been perfect for a very heavily video game-based worldview. Unfortunately, the material isn’t compelling as adapted by Zak Penn (“Last Action Hero”, “The Avengers”) and author Ernest Cline himself. Perhaps Cline’s original text is more compelling, I cannot say. Meanwhile, director Spielberg is in full-on ‘Dinosaurs are neat-o’ mode. He’s like a genial granddad who thinks he’s hip, but is maybe a few years out of date. Worst of all, beyond all the technology, the CGI and ‘avatars’, there’s no heart or soul here. Like “Jurassic Park”, this one’s an amusement park ride, and not a very enjoyable one for anyone over the age of 16 I’d wager. Even a lot of gamers shat all over the film (and the book, it must be said) for being a bunch of gamer references tacked on to a kiddie pic, and not the kind that also appeals to older folks much. Obviously everyone is different so some adults may indeed enjoy the film, and certainly some will enjoy it a heck of a lot more than I did.

Like with the previous “Tintin” where Spielberg and Peter Jackson got too obsessed with the mo-cap CGI to the point of zero interesting storytelling, this one’s all about the visuals, and that only goes so far. Which isn’t far at all, as it turns out as it doesn’t take long to feel detached from it all. You’re basically watching someone else play a video game, which holds zero appeal for me.

No, I never got into this one and I honestly thought I would. I haven’t read the novel, but the basic idea and the chosen filmmaker seemed like a can’t-miss picture to me. Oh how I was wrong. In fact, I probably should’ve guessed given this was also the guy who cheerfully endorsed Atari’s “E.T.” video game, and that widely hated piece of shit is landfill now. The hollowness rears its head pretty early, as we’re supposedly in the year 2045 yet we begin with Van Halen’s very 1980s ‘Jump’. With “Turbo Kid” the 80s references and overall 80s splatter movie vibe felt more organic than all the 80s references here do. Sure, the songs are mostly great (I was born in 1980 myself so I grew up with a lot of 80s and early 90s music). I love that Tye Sheridan’s avatar drives a DeLorean, and someone else drives my preference: The 60s TV show Batmobile. However, they’re just references for the sake of retro hipness really, even if Rylance’s character is an 80s obsessive, here the references don’t quite make you feel like it’s anything more than name-dropping for its own sake. I love Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (which I can quite happily judge as a separate identity from Stephen King’s “The Shining”) and wouldn’t have minded all of the references to it if not for the fact that it seemed awfully weird and inorganic to have them here in a film that otherwise seems geared towards children who a) Weren’t anywhere near alive in 1980, and b) Probably wouldn’t have seen the very adult horror film. So I just sat there scratching my head instead of going along with it and having the fun I was presumably supposed to be having. I was long disengaged by that point anyway. In fact, things really crap out once lead actor Tye Sheridan gets turned into an avatar and we basically watch him engage in a video game for far too long of a stretch of the film. Sheridan himself is hardly visible in the film’s first half, ditto Olivia Cooke, and neither talented actor much impresses when they do show their real selves on screen. By then, I’d already checked out mentally, I’m afraid. Also, while the CGI work gets the job done so far as looking to be quite 3D, the overall design is Anime-inspired, and not lifelike. Yes, they’re meant to be video game characters, but I’ve seen way more photorealistic ones, and I believe photorealism would’ve been so much better in so far as pulling the audience in. I felt entirely removed and disengaged as Spielberg shows you the fun park ride instead of actually taking you along for it. You’re watching instead of participating. “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” did the video game vibe so much better, by still featuring actual human beings in a somewhat altered version of the real world. I was able to go along for that ride, and it wasn’t even trying to be quite so immersive. Hell, even the fully animated “Wreck-It Ralph” drew me in much more to its computerised world and animated characters. So it can be done. Spielberg just hasn’t figured out the formula. It’s odd, by being so immersive in intention, Spielberg has distanced the audience instead.

Outside of the lead actors, T.J. Miller isn’t bad as an underling, but chief villain Ben Mendelsohn looks so bored and disengaged. He must’ve been the only one here who realised this thing wasn’t going to work, albeit perhaps too late to quit the project. He’s surprisingly dull for a change and is further hamstrung by his distractingly artificial whitened teeth. In fact, the only one here who really comes off well is a surprisingly funny Mark Rylance cast against type as an almost surfer dude-like computer game creator (kind of a mixture of Jobs, Wozniak, and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan). Simon Pegg, however  is utterly wasted as the co-creator of OASIS and no one else in the cast is even worth a mention. As for the plot, there’s not a heck of a lot to it and what plot there is happens to be largely inspired by “The Matrix” by way of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’m being kind in saying ‘inspired’, very kind.

A filmmaker who used to make really cool family movies tries to recapture the magic through an 80s obsessed YA novel about video games. Unfortunately, Spielberg just doesn’t have the connection to youth anymore, the material is thin, and the whole thing lacks a damn pulse. I really loved the idea in theory, and appreciated the cameos by Marvin the Martian, Sonic the Hedgehog, and (I think) ET, but overall it felt like watching someone else play a video game. That might be OK for kids who like to watch YouTube tutorials, but then you go and play the game yourself, right? You don’t get that here, so it’s useless. Mark Rylance is terrific, though and if you’re a big fan of Grandpa Steven’s big dinosaur movie, you might get a good deal more out of this than I did. I just hope you know he’s capable of so much better than neat-o dinosaurs and way cool video games.

Rating: D+