'Ready Player One' A Review

Ready Player One is a scifi adventure movie an adaptation of the novel of the same name. In 2049 wide spread poverty and a faltering environment have forced the majority of people to log in to the virtual reality world OASIS not only for entertainment but for employment. Wade(Tye Sheridan) is a teen who lives in a slum in Columbus, OH who dreams of finding the Easter Egg the OASIS creator James Halliday(Mark Rylance) hid upon his death. Finding it is Wade's obsession however he and his friends are opposed by evil corporation IOI helmed by Nolan(Ben Mendelsohn).

I suppose Rylance may be the only one in the cast doing anything particularly interesting as far as performance but almost unilaterally character and emotion are sacrificed in the name of action and plot. The disadvantage of this adaptation, and in many book-to-movie, is it's length. It doesn't have, or at least allot, the necessary time and energy to make the characters three dimensional, hell two dimensional. There's a very palpable sense that all the "main" characters are going through the motions with virtually nothing to differentiate them or shade their personalities in anyway. This is exacerbated by the lengthy swatches of the story that take place in the OASIS which feel more like extended video game cutscenes for PS2 rather than an immersive imaginative alternate world.

The action is interesting enough, the pop culture references thick, with a plot that clips along- it's entertaining but not new. All spectacle with the themes lost in the relentless eye-popping morass. It is a blatant and surface level mining of nostalgia with no message, no real thought behind it.

It looks cool enough, like watching a friend play a video game well.

Rent It.