REVIEW OF READY PLAYER ONE

Grade: A-

Throughout my life, I have been exposed to numerous pop culture pieces: from iconic video game characters to silver screen heroes. I’ve been fortunate to see the birth of characters inspiring generations, daring us to dream. These idols create childhood memories that grow into nostalgia. These icons can be found in the new movie, based on Ernest Cline’s book with the same title, Ready Player One. They band together in an epic quest for Halliday’s Easter Egg inside the virtual world of OASIS. 

The picture follows the principal character, Wade, played by Tye Sheridan, who gets word of a mysterious Easter Egg left behind by the creator, Halliday. In gaming, an Easter Egg is an intentionally hidden joke, message, image, or secret feature a creator builds into the game.

Wade decides to jump into his avatar, Parzival, and team up with his online friends Aech (Lena Waithe) and Sho (Philip Zhao), to solve the mystery of preserving this virtual world. The balance between real-world versus online collides as the group hopes to beat an evil corporation called Innovative Online Industries, which covets the Easter Egg. 

Many will enjoy scenes that create the sensation of playing a video game on the big screen, as most of the film takes place in OASIS. Heavy with CGI, usually this can hurt some features; for this movie, the digital actors outperform the real actors.

I read Cline’s book, and the flick differs from the source media. Surprisingly that’s a good thing. Though both are great at delivering sentimentality, I believe the script for the movie was more compelling than the book.

Steven Spielberg’s 2-hour and 20-minute ride moves at a colorful and frantic pace. With the help of numerous cameos from many childhood heroes, Ready Player One screams nostalgia for most of the run time. Since this has always been a spoiler-free zone, I won’t detail which characters you will see, as not all were found in the trailer. Just know that each appearance will hit you in the feels.

With a story that takes you on a fun and fast-paced adventure, pop culture overload, and dazzling CGI, Ready Player One is a great excuse to round up your friends and plug into the OASIS.

Rated: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, nudity, and language)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriters: Zak Penn and Ernest Cline
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Adventure

Synopsis
The science fiction action adventure “Ready Player One ” comes from filmmaker Steven Spielberg, based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller. The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery, and danger.