Ready Player One

When it comes to film nostalgia, it is generally agreed that there is a thirty-year cycle. Films made in the 1970s and 1980s had a fondness for 1950s nostalgia (Grease, Back to the Future), for example. This is not a new concept, yet there seems to be a particularly lasting obsessing with 80s culture in film and television. J.J. Abrams created the throwback adventure film Super 8 (2011); the Duffer brothers have a Netflix phenomenon on their hands with Stranger Things (2016-present); the new adaptation of Stephen King’s IT (2017) changed the original story’s setting from the 1950s to the 1980s; and now Steven Spielberg, champion of much of the iconic 80s blockbuster films, has crafted his own throwback to this era with Ready Player One, a movie filled to bursting with iconic pop culture characters from the 1980s.

Adapted from the popular novel of the same name by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One follows teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) in the year 2045. The real world has fallen into ruin; as a result, most of the world’s population have retreated into the OASIS, a virtual world “where the limits of reality are your own imagination.” The creator of this virtual universe, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), has passed away with no heirs to inherit his legacy. Halliday’s will reveals that he has hidden an Easter egg somewhere in this vast universe. Whoever completes the challenges (all of them based around Halliday’s obsession with 80s culture) and finds the egg will inherit Halliday’s vast fortune and majority shares of his company. But when Wade solves the first challenge, his life is threatened by a corporation that will stop at nothing to find the egg and take control of the OASIS.

Over the past decade, Spielberg has retreated from making the fun blockbusters he was known for, creating instead films that were destined to be bigger hits with the awards ceremonies than the masses. Ready Player One is a return to classic Spielberg. He has crafted a truly exciting adventure here. While full of recognisable characters from various films and video games (such as a particularly hilarious sequence where the characters find themselves in a recreation of the Overlook Hotel from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining), the film is not simply a gigantic product placement for iconic characters. The frequent references provoke a lot of laughs, but there’s also an exciting story and world-building to enjoy. At one point, an impressive single shot takes us through the various worlds of the OASIS, a startling contrast to the harsh reality that our heroes find themselves living in. It’s a lot of fun watching our heroes rely on their encyclopedic knowledge of 80s culture to solve Halliday’s puzzles.

The OASIS is the star of the film; this virtual universe is jaw-dropping in its detail and presentation, and demands to be seen on the biggest screen you can find (if there’s an IMAX theatre in your area, go to it). An opening racing sequence that incorporates the DeLorean, King Kong, and a T-Rex is one of the most adrenaline-fuelled action sequences of recent years. But in contrast to the OASIS scenes, the real-world segments aren’t as compelling. Whenever the characters are spending time outside of this virtual world, I found myself wanting to return to the OASIS. We don’t get as much backstory for the real world as we do for the OASIS, aside from a quick bit of narration at the beginning of the film. (The phrase “bandwidth wars” gave me a chuckle). Thankfully, the majority of the film does take place in the OASIS, so the real-world segments don’t hurt the film much.

Tye Sheridan as protagonist Wade Watts

The weakest aspect of the film is characterization. Aside from Wade, the group of assembled heroes aren’t particularly interesting. A romance between Wade and Samantha (Olivia Cooke) feels laughably forced, with Wade professing his love for Samantha after only a handful of scenes together. The film vaguely attempts to explore this idea (since Wade spends almost all of his time logged into this virtual world with no real human contact, you could argue it makes sense he’d fall in love so easily), but fails to dip beneath the surface, which is a shame, as in this age of social media and online dating, it would be an interesting topic to explore. The villain of the film (Ben Mendelsohn, who played a much more entertaining villain in 2016’s Rogue One) is bland and forgettable, not much of a threat to our heroes.

Nevertheless, Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One is a fantastic slice of blockbuster entertainment. The characters may be a little dull (you could arguably say the same of those in Jurassic Park), but the film is a triumph of exciting action, clever storytelling, and awe-inspiring visuals. Get some popcorn, find the biggest screen you can, and enjoy the ride.



Seán Flynn Contributor
Seán Flynn is in his early twenties and lives in a small town in Ireland. His ultimate passion is film, and he spends a great deal of his time getting trains to Dublin City to see obscure indie movies. He works at a cinema, and also enjoys reading. Favourite authors include J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and George R.R. Martin. He has written reviews for ‘Grand Central Magazine’.

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