Ready Player One Review

"Ready Player One" is less of a movie and more of an experience, a high-flying adventure that is a spectacle that is both exhausting and visceral on a visual level. As soon as we entered the Oasis, the virtual-reality world that most of the action takes place in, I sunk right into my chair and jumped right on for the ride. It's the kind of movie that I wish I had an endless bag of popcorn to munch on when watching.

We follow Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), an orphan who lives at his aunt's in a towering tenement of trailers patched together. We spend the entire movie with him, but most is in the form of his avatar, his created character in the Oasis, a world where everyone and their mom's live their lives in. As the film starts he's about to enter a race, the first of three "games" he needs to complete to gain total control of the Oasis, per request of the deceased owner James Halliday (Mark Rylance).

You see, this eccentric creator has hidden an "easter egg," which is a hidden item somewhere in the video game world, that requires someone, or some people, to complete a challenge and collect a key. Once they do, only then do they inherit a bunch of money and ownership of the virtual reality realm. And it's not just him that wants to win, everyone does, including Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), CEO to the Oasis competitor IOI. He's the villain of the movie, a decent one but not much from your generic "bad guy who works for bad company that does bad things."

This is where some cracks show, and it's mostly in the characterization. Sure, our boy Wade is a charming little lad, and his crew of digital buddies have some chemistry, but I don't believe that they're real friends. The group is far from "The Goonies," but I suppose that's kinda the point. Isn't that what happens when you only interact with your pals online?

But the action! That race I spoke of earlier, Wade just sits down in his DeLorean and slams down on the petal, racing past monster trucks, motorcycles and other wacky vehicles on an obstacle course where both a T-Rex and King Kong crunch and smash cars into coins that other racers can collect. I forgot to mention that everytime we enter the Oasis, things become a game of "Where's Waldo-" there are decades of pop-culture on every inch of the screen. Even the dialogue is referenced-packed, from more obvious mentions like "The Breakfast Club" to more obscure ones like "Buckaroo Banzai." I can't recall the last time I thought of that movie!

"Ready Player One" is a blast to watch, because the action is so clearly staged, filmed and edited. And there are a lot of them! It's a breakneck endurance round of pure joy, a nostalgic, whimsical return to form from the man who created the blockbuster.