Ready Player One Non-Spoiler Review

I first heard of Ready Player One when they put out that trailer during SDCC and I was immediately hooked since I grew up in the 90's and 90's and a lot of the scenes in that first trailer connects to me so much. Sadly I have never read the book nor heard of it until I did some research on the movie itself. Truth be told I haven't even read the book as to the writing of this movie review so you folks will have to forgive me if I may judge this film with little to no knowledge of the source material its based upon. I did some minimal research here and there but that's about it. So with that being said let's get on with the review.

Ready Player One is a 2018 film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, and written by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline, based on a 2011 book by Clines with the same name. The film stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance.

Set in the year 2045, when much of humanity, escaping the desolation of the real-world, uses the virtual reality software OASIS to engage in work and play. Wade Watts (Sheridan) discovers clues to a hidden game within the program that promises the winner full ownership of the OASIS, and joins several allies to try to complete the game before indentured players working for a large company, run by Nolan Sorrento (Mendelsohn), can do so.

One a story perspective the of Ready Player One is pretty straight forward with very little to bring in terms of twist and turns aside from the Sharidan's character Wade trying to solve the three keys hidden within the game before IOI do. You don't feel the stakes of the movie even after one of the characters explain it in the film, so IOI taking over OASIS and turning it into a Corporate monopoly doesn't sound or look as bad as they say it is. It's bad but its not really the end of the world bad. It's this aspect that I think the book does a lot better.

I read somewhere that one of the challenges of Wade in the book was playing a perfect game of Pacman. A perfect game requires a player to play 200+ stages of Pacman. Having played Pacman both on the Atari back in the 80's I know for a fact how freaking hard to accomplish this. If Wade can do this according to the book then you know he has some serious gaming skills. The film also does a lot of stuff better than the book and some segment was taken out that I feel made the movie better namely concerning the character Daito.

Visually this movie is impressive with nearly every scene choke full of detail and pop culture references that makes even Wreck-it Raph to shame and its one of the best part of the entire film. There's so much stuff going on that I'd suggest watching the film more than once just to take it all in. It does all this stuff without looking like a big advertising movie. if you're a gamer, a geek, a movie fan you will enjoy this movie just by hunting for references and easter egg along. A movie about an easter egg hunt that is filled with easter egg done right.

This movie is filled to the brim with references and easter eggs that I count its over 50+ of them in there from Freddy Krueger to a freaking gundam. Its a real treat just finding all of them in the film.

Ready Player Ones choice of music and song for the film are excellent with certain music and character themes playing on certain character introduction or scenes. The final battle in the film is probably one of the best part of the film for me. The visual, the music, the action just blend together in pure nostalgia awesomeness.

The only flaw I find is that supposed love connection between Wade and Art3mis which I feel was rushed but then again they did try to cramp around five months of the book into a two hour movie making all the pieces connect somehow.

Ready Player One is probably one of the best, if not the best video game movie since the first Mortal Kombat movie. It's a pure amazing nostalgia ride to pop culture of the 80's and the 90's. An eye candy in terms of visual with great music to match. If you are a fan of video game, comics, movies, anime, horror or just want a great movie that touches into pop culture or has a nostalgia feel to it than this movie is for you. I'd easily recommend this to anyone and is a film anyone should watch at least once. Clearly a very easy perfect 10 for me.