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Legendary director Steven Spielberg’s latest film Ready Player One transports us to Columbus, Ohio in the year 2045 where reality has turned dystopian and bleak, while a virtual reality world called OASIS, part video game, part substitute for real life, has become so ubiquitous within society that it has made its creators James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and Ogden Marrow (Simon Pegg) into trillionaires. One of OASIS’s most avid users is Wade Watts (Ty Sheridan) a young teenage orphan who like many turns to the digital world as an escape from the problems in his everyday life. After Halliday dies, he decides to bequeath his fortune and ownership of OASIS to the person who can win a challenged-based scavenger hunt to find three keys hidden throughout the OASIS that unlock access to the winnings. Wade uses his extensive knowledge of the life of his hero Halliday to win the first challenge and unites with his five friends Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), Aech (Lena Waithe), pronounced “H”, Daito (Win Morisaki), and Sho (Philip Zhao) to uncover the final keys while fighting for the future of the virtual world against the greedy tech corporation Innovative Online Industries (IOI) led by its CEO Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn).
Much has been made of Ready Player One’s appeal to the film-going public’s current tastes for nostalgia and how the film’s overload of references to the ghosts of pop culture past would make it worth the price of admission. But the current box office strategy and cinematic fascination with tickling our brains’ receptors for pleasant memories of our youth and familiar figures ignores the most important aspect of making a successful film, producing an engaging and interesting on-screen story. And while it was somewhat satisfying to see the Jurassic Park T. rex chase the Marty McFly’s Delorean, Ready Player One offers an intriguing and engrossing enough story to succeed on that front. The film contains some interesting observations about current societal trends, specifically the increase of corporate influence and power as well as our growing dependence and consumption of technology.
In this dystopian future, IOI has become so ubiquitous and embedded within the social fabric of America that those who find themselves in debt to the company after making in-game purchases in the OASIS become subject to a new form of indentured servitude in order to pay off these debts. But, in a setup more akin to sharecropping, IOI’s framework for the system prevents debtors from ever being able to repay what they owe, dooming them to a life of de facto slavery. The film’s depiction of this evil, multi-billion dollar corporation which exists in the face of poverty so overwhelming that people are forced to live in apartment towers that resemble junkyards while pouring the little money they have into a virtual world that provides even a slight respite from reminders of their plight is striking given our own society’s current grappling with income inequality, tech companies so influential that they could swing elections, and the return of debtors’ prisons in the form of people jailed for being unable to pay legal fines. In a scene that turns the lauding of its nostalgic appeal on its head, Ready Player One even makes a subtle allusion to these types of corporations using our romantic connection to past pop culture icons to woo and manipulate the populace into ignoring their nefariousness when Sorrento attempts to convince Wade to sell the first key to control over the OASIS to IOI by referencing John Hughes movies being fed into his ear by a knowledgeable employee. Telling people what they want to hear and giving them what they desire in the short-term as a way of gaining long-term control over their lives is a struggle the world is currently engaged in and Spielberg’s film serves as a warning of where this trend could lead without increased diligence on the part of the public.
The film’s other big piece of social commentary is on our growing dependence on technology to fulfill the void and pain within our lives. As discussed at the beginning of this review, Wade has an extensive life of hurt, abandonment, and disappointment from which the OASIS offers an escape. This virtual world gives him riches, a best friend in the form of Aech, and excitement and hope, but it has also closed him off from seeing and experiencing the world around him. We see this when he professes his love, and real name, to Art3mis but is met with her admonishment that his being engrossed in this virtual world has left him blind to the real life threat to the world’s quality of life represented by IOI. As Americans become increasingly connected electronically through smartphones and social media, I found the journey of realization Wade was forced to embark on at Art3mis’s behest relevant to the world around us. As people find love, shop, socialize, grocery shop, and so many other things over the internet at increasing rates, these online worlds they’ve set up for themselves have an impact on the real world that is only growing increasingly large. While on the world wide web, a person can become anyone they want to be, socialize exclusively with people that are only like them, and only come face to face with a world and facts that they are comfortable and agree with. The effect this has had on our culture and politics is just now starting to come into full view and Ready Player One presents an argument that disconnecting from technology that ostensibly makes us all closer may be integral to ensuring that true human connection never withers away and dies.
Ready Player One is an entertaining, well paced, and visually enchanting movie suitable for all four quadrants. It is full of the humor and child-like wonder certain to keep kids entranced with enough nostalgic notes and an engrossing story that keeps their parents interested along side them. The film’s examination of topical societal issues complements the dazzling visual effects work. The look of the film is incredible with the effects used to create the virtual world of the OASIS really standing out as extremely impressive. Spielberg took the creative tact of shooting the OASIS on digital film and the real world scenes on 35mm film to differentiate between the two worlds. Such visual storytelling really allows the film’s look to shine through and accomplish what it does here. This film is going to look incredible in both Dolby Cinema and 4K Ultra HDR for home viewing.
Ready Player One is very much a return for Spielberg into his classic mold for blockbuster filmmaking, both for better and for worse. Better in terms of it being a solid, guaranteed quality experience at the movies, but worse in that the film can feel a bit like something you’ve already seen and felt before at a higher level of enjoyment. Ready Player One is a quality movie and as much of a sure thing as one could spend money on to see a movie, but the movie’s ceiling is a low one with a by-the-numbers plot that never reaches heights the movie going public hasn’t already reached previously.
Image: Warner Bros.
