‘Ready Player One’ offers much more than just nostalgia
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First things first: the film adaptation of “Ready Player One” is massively, MASSIVELY different from the Ernest Cline-penned novel it’s based upon. The story unspools differently and emphasizes different themes and emotions. But, just like the book, the cinematic “Ready Player One” is an entertaining and surprisingly emotional adventure.
The story: Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) lives in the not-so-distant future, where poor people live in towering piles of mobile homes called “stacks” and everyone escapes their unfulfilling flesh-and-blood lives by logging into a massive virtual reality universe called the Oasis. Wade spends all available time as his avatar, Parzival, searching high and low for an Easter egg hidden by James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the deceased creator of the Oasis. Whoever finds this hidden egg gets Halliday’s fortune and complete control over the Oasis.
Of course, Wade isn’t the only person looking for Halliday’s egg. Innovative Online Industries, headed by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), employs a legion of faceless egg hunters in hopes of finding the egg themselves, monetizing the Oasis and fattening their wallets. With the help of his friends, Wade races to outwit Sorrento and his goons, while forming a real-life relationship with Art3mis (Olivia Cooke).
“RP1” is helmed by legendary director Steven Spielberg, who is as responsible as anyone for creating a body of work that inspired this story. And, man, is he the perfect choice. He deftly orchestrates every note of nostalgia into a symphony of familiar sights and sounds. This movie is so packed with visual references to other beloved movies, TV shows and video games that it’s impossible to pick them all out in one viewing.
Spielberg also expertly captures the action sequences. The movie opens with a breathless race sequence that will put a huge smile on the face of anyone who loves movies. The climactic battle scene is similarly epic and full of amazing visuals.
But what is unexpected, and best, about Spielberg’s approach to the film is how he wrings feelings out of the material. There’s a good deal of focus on regret in “RP1”, and it helps the film make much more impact than it would have if was a two-hour reel of “look at this cool thing from your childhood” shots.
Which brings me to the acting. Since this is a movie that spends most of its time in a computer-simulation, the voice acting has to be spot on. And it is. Sheridan and Cooke give their avatars the proper emotional footing. They hold the movie together.
But they don’t do it by themselves. Simon Pegg shows up for a few scenes, and it’s always good to see him onscreen. Better is the performance given by Mendelsohn, who is the perfect corporate slimeball. Here’s hoping we get to see him in more movies.
But the best performance in the movie is given by Rylance. He makes Halliday achingly awkward and filled with regret, a great man to the world who never made any connections that mattered. A man who would give away all his greatness if it would save him from loneliness.
“Ready Player One” could have used a few more scenes establishing how crummy life in 2045 is, and why people choose the Oasis over the real world. The climactic chase scene plays out too predictably to be completely satisfying. But Spielberg gives this film enough emotional weight that it rises beyond being a pleasant nostalgia blast and becomes warm-hearted love letter to friendship.