“Ready Player One” is directed by Steven Spielberg based on the best-selling novel by Ernest Cline, who co-wrote the script with Zak Penn. The futuristic adventure takes place in the year 2045 in Columbus, Ohio of all places.
We follow Wade Watts, a young man who prefers to spend his time in “The Oasis,” a virtual reality world created by a recently deceased genius who left behind a challenge to all Oasis users: Find three keys that lead to the ultimate easter egg.
Spielberg’s movie differs greatly from the book as most book-to-screen adaptations go, but the attempt to compress Cline’s story is mostly successful.
Where Ready Player One excels is the amazing action sequences. Few directors have mastered scene blocking the way Spielberg has. His ability to shift dozens of characters in and out of frame is flawless and unmatched.
The most obvious aspect of this movie was the nostalgia and the use of easter eggs. Mediaeaster eggs are now and have always been a wonderful little plot device. If you’re not familiar with it, an easter egg is an unexpected or undocumented feature in a piece of computer software or on a DVD, included as a joke or a bonus.
Right now you can’t find a TV show, a movie, or a video game that isn’t loaded with easter eggs, and this movie about a video game is ram packed with easter eggs. The Iron Giant, Chucky, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Halo are easter eggs and references that all made an appearance in the movie.
You can watch the movie multiple times and still not catch all the easter eggs.
Even though this film is about gaming, Spielberg wanted to make sure this was a film that everyone could enjoy. He brought the audience a story of two worlds that are extremely unbalanced.
The people of the real world pretty much have traded in their real lives for virtual ones. The opportunity to be the person you always wanted to be has been the appeal for the virtual world for a long time.
One necessary pitfall of the movie was that the real world was dreadfully boring, even with the action toward the end. Every time Wade left the virtual world, you were just waiting for him to go back. But again, this isn’t a real problem because the driving force is the escape for the virtual world.
In the end, this whirlwind adventure conveyed a message not to lose touch with reality while enjoying the fun of virtual reality. Nothing in the virtual world can compare to real world touch and interaction.