Ready Player One

Steven Spielberg deserves all the credits he gets. He practically designed most people's childhoods with classic movies like E.T., Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones. Yet, when you think of his most recent films, all of the memorabilia just stops. They're not bad films, not at all, but most people including myself find ourselves feeling more nostalgic for his classic films, and that brings us to the topic of nostalgia, period.

Nostalgia is a great thing to have. It makes us feel more whole, remembering past adventures or scenarios with the greatest of feelings. Sometimes, nostalgia pays off, like when you buy a video game from your youth and it's still as great as it was, or sometimes it's not so great, like when you rally to get a chicken nugget sauce to return only for it to be not great. It's really hit or miss, but nevertheless it's something that's been rampant since the 20th century.

So, how does this connect to Ready Player One? Well, who better than Steven Spielberg, the undisputed king of 80s nostalgia films, to make the adaptation of the novel that's purely about nostalgia, with a little modern pop culture thrown in? Exactly. But, even with Spielberg on board, is it an automatic win for this ambitious love affair with what we all love, or just straight game over.

Ready Player One is a conflicting film, first hand, because I love it. I love it unashamedly. I left the theater with a smile on my face and wanting to see it again. Yet, at the same time, I know it's not the best film in the world, and it deserves its fair share of criticisms. That's what I'm here to do. 

RP1 (I'm just gonna call it that to save typing time) does one thing right, and thats its story. Of course, being built off of a best-selling book helps a lot, but it's a lot of old-fashioned magical fantasy quest stuff, that's just built around this whole arena of pop culture references. The main characters have to go on quests to find the ultimate goal, it's real good stuff when you really look at it. Add that to some pretty amazing setpieces that, while not necessarily enhancing the story, give you so much eye candy that you can't help but enjoy it.

Secondly, Spielberg is at some of his best here...even in a film that's mostly CGI. It's got a lot of his famous filmmaking tropes, and his clever humor that you can't really find anywhere else. Everyone who loves Spielberg and hoped for his return to his old-fashioned style may just walk out of this film quite pleased. That deserves top marks alone.

Now onto the quite mediocre stuff. The cast isn't really all that memorable, in fact I can barely remember the names of the actors involved, except for one, but we'll get back to that in a minute. The characters themselves are kinda cardboard cut-out style characters...you've got the main guy who's a young adult living in a somewhat post-apocalyptic world, the edgy chick love interest, his awkward best friend, and they all have to go up against the big corporate villain which is played by a quite underutilized Ben Mendelssohn. It's just rather bland and the performances just barely make the cut. Couple that with some mediocre dialogue, and you just can't fall in love with these characters quite like some others we've seen recently.

But otherwise, what I said about loving this film is true. It may not be the best film of 2018, but it's one of my favorites by far...it's a film to have fun with, after all. I'll give Ready Player One 7.7/10, not quite a high score, but a valiant attempt for sure. Nevertheless, the old Spielberg is back, and hopefully for good.