Ready Player One (dir. Steven Spielberg)

Arguably the world’s first connoisseur of “popcorn entertainment”, veteran director Steven Spielberg has enriched blockbuster cinema for the best part of four decades. First came "Jaws" in 1975, which blew the box-office wide-open and gave birth to the genre- while simultaneously keeping audiences from running into the sea -followed quickly by immensely profitable classics such as "E.T", "Jurassic Park", "Saving Private Ryan", and a few runs at the Indiana Jones series. 

Every so often, a Oscar-bait entry was thrown in for good measure: such as "Catch Me if You Can", "Munich", "War Horse" and most recently the much revered "The Post" -which proved his innate ability to make a buck out of any story while bringing his own dynamic range to proceedings. And his back-catalogue isn't restricted to live-action offerering's either , with his 2011 incarnation of the much revered "Adventures of Tin-Tin" being the prime example. You’d be hard-pressed to argue that Spielberg hasn’t dipped his toe in all manor of cinematic waters. 

Yet his latest effort “Ready Player One” - adapted from Ernest Cline's graphic novel of the same name - is hefty on this aforementioned "blockbuster" charm, and is aided by some overwhelming visuals and charming nods to the pop-culture stratosphere, though is missing his usual dogmatic precision with character development, and a underlying message of hope in the face of adversity. 

If Spielberg’s adventure outings have taught us anything, it’s that the limits of reality are the limits of your imagination- and in the past that has worked wonders for his career. Here however, he is restrained by the intricacies of the script -and is unable to wrestle with the quite risible plot-holes of the source material. Even if there is an overabundance of glitz and glamour in the ethereal backdrops - which are nominally arresting- the theatrics back in the real world are less imaginative. 

So, let’s take the premise: Wade Watts (a bland Tye Sheridan) lives a meager existence in the slums of what was once Columbus, Ohio. The year is 2045, and society has been run down by the “corn-syrup riots” and “bandwidth wars”- with the majority of the lower classes living in skyscraper-high shacks known as the “Stacks”.  For most people, of all ages, days are spent heavily immersed in a VR computer-generated world called the OASIS: a neon-drenched dystopia where players become avatars of their own choosing and anybody they want to be from their deepest and darkest fantasies. Picture the most idealistic arcade motif, interspersed with an eighties and seventies infused score and lush visuals, and you've got your very own CGI-saturated garden of eden. 

Most of the fun within the game comes from from battling fellow gamers in order to reap their finances (you never actually die in the game but loose everything you own i.e all your money), or perusing the vast landscapes with any of your most adored film characters in tow. If you want to climb a 100-foot mountain with Batman, or down a few Mojito's with Harley Quinn than the OASIS is the place for you. 

For the most part, the odd snapshot of the other-worldly antics are suitably cheerful in a post-modern "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" type of way, but it's not substantial enough to fit a 140-minute movie- so thankfully something bigger is on the horizon.  

It’s success was the brainchild of life-long nerd James Halliday (Mark Rylance - in his third collaboration with Spielberg after "Bridge of Spies" and "The BFG") - who co-founded the project with his now ex-partner Ogden (a vastly underused, Simon Pegg) as an antidote to mankind’s recent downtrodden existence. It quickly turned from a momentary novelty to society's main form of escapism - pitting everyone from soccer moms to your usual video-game obsessed nerds. 

But our Steve-Jobs like inventor has been dead for five years now, and in a Willy Wonka-esque style of events, has bequeathed his entire fortune and control of the game to the player who can complete three arduous levels - bestowing upon the winner the metaphorical keys to the kingdom. 

Sounds easy, right? Not quite: Video-game boffin Wade believes he can decipher to the posthumous ramblings of Halliday given his obsessive pop-culture knowledge and stalker-like interest of our deceased pioneer. But alas, everyone with a vague knowledge of the OASIS believe they have the chops to become the newly crowned heir to Halliday’s legacy; chiefly among them the corporate bozos over at IOI (Innovative Online Industries) -led by dastardly Noah Sorrentino (Ben Mendehlson). Their mission is less to do with becoming the new gaming prodigy and more maligned with the financial gain, as control of the OASIS would allow them to sell the marketing space within the game to the highest bidder. 

Led by his trusty board of advisors, Sorrentino has had little luck thus far with cracking the codes to Halliday's posthumous mutterings -even though he has corralled a large clan of expert players called "The Sixer's" to do his bidding for him. As luck would have it though, he's hot on the heels on of our titular VR aficionado - and will stop at nothing to become the rightful heir to Halliday's opulence. 

Wade isn't alone however, and teams up with regular disciple Aeth (Lena Waithe): a 7-foot monster with a hip-hop sensibility, love interest Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), sword-wielding Japanese samurai Daito (Win Morsuaki) and Deadpool-esque mercenary Sho (Phillip Zhao), to help navigate the intricacies of his riddles. 

For the first hour there’s fun to be had within the milieu, as Spielberg flickers back and forth between the OASIS and futuristic Ohio, the popcorn-entertainment is admirably restrained. On a visual level, plaudits must be bestowed upon the visual spectacle -even if it’s perhaps less eye-catching in it’s kaleidoscopic vision as James Cameron’s Avatar -which is inherently impressive in it’s technological feat (although helped immensely by the generous $150 million budget and near-18 month long post-production schedule). 

In particular, the inner-workings of the OASIS are luxuriant, and painted with a luminous glow which is hard to ignore. Additionally, the sheer amount of nostalgic vigor with which Spielberg directs (it’s almost hard to keep up with the sly nods to the cultural references), is notably impressive, though you'd expect nothing less from someone who never really understood the differences between child and grown-up entertainment. One could argue that the perennial big-kid director is at his very best when taking a trip down memory lane, and does so with self-aware fashion on numerous occasions here. 

Perhaps the film's greatest moment is the first action set-piece, which kicks the drama into fourth-gear with a spell-bending threshold. A high-speed death-race-esque car chase along the computer-generated avenues of a New York highway pits out VR Avatar’s against their fellow heavily armored vehicles, as well as the occasional pop-culture icons, from King Kong and the odd T-Rex (a nod to Spielberg’s Jurassic Park franchise no doubt). They jump from building to building to aid the difficulty level of the ensuing automobile mayhem and show up for long enough to wet your pallet - jump-starting the fire-burning nostalgia resurrected in society of late. All of it works quite nicely for a while, and if you’re like me and have an penchant for reigniting the eight-year old boy within you, mount your behind at the precipice of your seat, adorn yourself with a mischievous grin and let the extravagance wash over you like a lukewarm shower. 

But the fun stops remarkably promptly after this.  

Despite it's alluring canvas, the  fundamental problem with Spielberg’s $150 million geek-fest is it can’t handle the dramatic weight during it’s real moments. As too often Is the case in "Ready Player One",  hazardly told subplots -such as those surrounding Halliday’s personal life-  are juxtaposed with strangely unremarkable dialogue and a misguided pacing. A ham-fisted love interest between Wade and Art3mis just feels incredibly perfunctory also, and would have been passable if it weren't written with every cliché in existence as it's backdrop.  

For a film with sporadically entertaining set pieces - including an audacious segment which plays heavily on Stanley Kubrick’s "The Shining" - the writing from Zak Penn’s script isn’t strong enough either to keep the dramatic weight; and when the drama quickly zooms back from the computer world to the slums of futuristic-Ohio, it can’t quite keep up with the level of energy.

The odd interludes of Sorrentino being reminded of just how poor he is at catching our cohorts, and the odd flashback to Halliday’s pre-death antics are thrown in for good measure, though they only create a plodding narrative which only serve to heap upon the already hefty 140 minute running time. Sheridan is hard to empathize with given his underwhelming turn -though this is due to his underwritten backstories (voice over alludes to a harsh uprbringing and his surrogate family are instantly forgettable)- as are his accompanying miscreants. Ben Mendehlson chews the scenery for all it’s worth, and I’m starting to worry if he really is a pantomime villain in real life; whilst Mark Rylance’s eccentric borderline-autistic big kid schtick grows tedious after a while, even if you can relate to his altruistic ideals. 

All in all, only a bold-faced liar would admit to not finding it inherently enjoyable, as there’s a repressed fanboy in every viewer. It must be said that the back-catalogue of icons reaches only as far as the Warner Brothers related variety (turns from The Iron Giant - who sits motionless in a garage awaiting the battle Royale style ending - to Harley Quinn and even a humurous turn from Chucky are but a few) , they add to the Spielberg-ian motif of popcorn fun and should bring a visible smirk to your complexion. But alas, audiences are surely going to arrive in their droves to for near 2 and half hours of Spielerberg-ian escapism, and many will come out completely ignorant to it’s fleeting errors - all of which would have been acceptable if the storytelling had just been a little bit less occupied with style over substance. 

Rating 2/5