Ready Player One (2018)
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Ready Player One Movie Review
Ready Player One is a 2018 sci-fi action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke and Ben Mendelsohn. It is a pretty good, respectable adaptation.
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“People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do,
but they stay for all the things they can be“
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I will try to review this film separately from the book as the book-film comparison would get its own post per usual, but for now let’s just say that the movie is very much a successful cinematic adaptation. Certainly they excluded some terrific parts such as Dungeons & Dragons and especially ‘WarGames’, but for the most part the movie is faithful where it counts.
The plot is pretty good and the film is consistently engaging from beginning to end. I did find the second half less interesting than the first one because it had way too many real-life scenes and a cheesy tone to it, but still the ending is solid and the overall conclusion worked really well. The film thankfully did not condemn the gaming culture, but is just right in its grey portrayal of it. They portrayed non-gamers as boring, unimaginative people, but they also criticized gamers for playing too much and forgetting to live in the real world. That honest, real treatment of this subject matter was perfect.
Wade Watts is nowhere near is good or as memorable as his book counterpart as he’s somewhat bland here and your typical good guy protagonist. The same goes for Samantha. Although I really liked their romance, the two of them individually are bland. Nolan Sorrento is a bit too goofy, but he worked in the context of this film and is overall a fun, but competent villain.
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i-R0k is frequently hilarious and such an amusing henchman and F-Nare is a kickass female villain. Daito and Sho are endearing, though underused. Ogden Morrow is great as is James Halliday, but both needed much more scenes and a bigger emphasis on their intriguing characters and relationship. Halliday was also portrayed a bit too unflatteringly for gamers. As for Aech, she is very good, fun and highly likable, but the problem with her is that she needed much more screen time and her sexual orientation was entirely omitted for the film which was a horrible choice in my opinion and very unfortunate.
The actors all did a good job in my book. Ben Mendelsohn overacted, but that is fine as the role called for that and he really established himself as a solid villain after this film and ‘Rogue One’. Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke are pretty good and Lena Waithe is quite charming. T.J. Miller gave such a great voice work here, very funny. Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance are both terrific in their roles.
Ready Player One has a bunch of memorable scenes such as the exhilarating race scene, the fantastic library sequences, the dance scene is excellent and honestly all of the scenes in the game itself are superb, but the real world scenes sometimes bored me. The film has pop-culture references in abundance, but it isn’t obsessed with them and still has a story and characters in a bigger emphasis which was great.
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What wasn’t great is that Spielberg applied the tone of the 80s way too much as he basically made an 80s Spielberg kid flick with too many goofy, innocent and silly moments. But I liked the pacing of the film, the score is great and the special effects are truly fantastic and frequently even inspired with excellent animation, character designs and world building. The film is also sweet and endearing throughout.
Ready Player One is different from the novel, but still ends up being a successful cinematic adaptation thanks to amazing special effects and world building, strong performances across the board and an emphasis on characterization, emotion and storytelling instead of relying purely on nostalgia and pop-culture references. The tone is too cheesy and childish as Spielberg basically made an 80s family flick, but overall the film is pretty good, consistently endearing, entertaining and with a good message at the end.
