Title – Ready Player One (2018)

Director – Steven Spielberg (Jaws)

Cast – Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Lena Waithe

Plot – In the year 2045, the virtual reality world known as the Oasis has taken over everyday life and when the creator of the Oasis James Halliday (Rylance) dies and leaves his trillion dollar fortune and control of the Oasis hidden inside the virtual universe, young Oasis player and slums resident Wade Watts/Parzival (Sheridan) sets out to conquer the mystery.

“People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be”

Review by Eddie on 30/03/2018

Head into Ready Player One with the right mindset (to have fun) and your likely to walk away from Steven Spielberg’s latest big screen specatacle and love letter to the 80’s with a great big smile upon your face.

Adapting Ernest Cline’s bestselling book of the same name, Ready Player One see’s The Great Bearded one in the most imaginative and playful mode his been in in quite some time, this isn’t serious Spielberg, this is the legendary filmmaker playing with his cinematic toys and taking us along for a rollicking good ride in the process.

Cline’s book was certainly no literary masterclass and that’s the same with Spielberg’s version of the story but like its source material, it’s not trying to be and knowing exactly what it is frees up Ready Player One to throw us headfirst into an often eye wateringly stunning spectacle thats tailor made to be enjoyed on the big screen.

The VR world of the Oasis, where roughly half of Ready Player One takes place in and where Tye Sheridan’s everyday hero Wade Watts must unlock the secret of the Oasis’s hidden easter egg to save it from the clutches of Ben Mendelsohn’s evil corporate man Nolan Soranto, is a wonderfully executed piece of imaginative filmmaking and a great incarnation of Clines novel.

To be clear for those that have read Cline’s book, a lot has changed here from page to screen and not always for the better but this world in which there are no limits to bar ones imagination, is handled by Spielberg brilliantly and often thrillingly, from frentic races through King Kong inhabited New York to perfectly reincarnated scenes from The Shining, the Oasis is Ready Player Ones MVP and reason enough for you to make a trip to the nearest cinema.

Where Ready Player One becomes less of an engaging experience is outside of the Oasis, with Sheridan’s somewhat bland Watts, Mendelsohn’s generic big bad and sleep walking performance and an overlong final 30 to 40 minutes combining together to bring the overall experience down, with a feeling that more initial setup and exploration of this endlessly exciting virtual world would’ve worked wonders and made this truely classic Spielberg, not just playfully fun and breezily exciting.

Final Say –

Ready Player One isn’t what you’d call a film for critics or an experience for those that are unwilling to let themselves enjoy the ride but this pop culture filled rollar coaster is surely one of the year’s most easily enjoyable big screen events and a love letter to the world’s we can create, with nothing more than the power of our imagination.

4 Chucky dolls out of 5