“People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be.”
Special thanks to Exclaim! for the chance to win passes.
Release Date: March 29th, 2018
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Run Time: 2H 20M (Doesn’t feel that long at all though.)
MPAA: PG-13
I had no idea what Ready Player One was until I saw the trailer, whilst the first trailer didn’t give away much, the other trailers brought a grin from ear to ear and the amount of easter eggs and images I saw, and I couldn’t wait to go see the movie after that. It was a movie fanatics fantasy, pretty much.
This movie is made for film fans, games fans and fans of pop culture in general. The easter eggs make it so your eyes are moving everywhere to try to spot everyone of them, I took my dad to go see it, and we were nudging each other and whispering when we saw a reference that designated with us a lot, it was a great bonding experience for me, as my father was the one who introduced me to science fiction, so it was a cool experience for me to take him to this new film, that had all these classic references. It was just a whole lot of fun. I didn’t stop grinning the entire film.
Ready Player One is an action, adventure and Sci-Fi film about a creator of a virtual reality world called OASIS. After he passes away, a video is released that challenges its users to find his Easter Egg, which will give its finder his fortune.
Ready Player One is directed by Steven Spielberg. If you don’t know who Steven Spielberg is, you’ve been living under a rock, or you’ve watch one, two maybe even three of his movies and didn’t realize it. His filmography consists of Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of The Third Kind (1977), Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler’s List (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1999), Minority Report (2002), The Terminal (2004), War Of The Worlds (2005), Munich (2005), Lincoln (2012), Bridge Of Spies (2015), and The Post (2017). I love Spielberg’s work so much, you always know what to expect but you don’t know exactly what to expect. He exceeded my expectations with Ready Player One, I thought it looked cool from the trailers, but I didn’t know how cool it would be. Its a gorgeous looking film, beautifully directed and told, the charm is there, and it is highly rewatchable, if not for the story, the references and spotting them out will make the movie a name that pop culture reference. It was also super cool to see Spielberg jump back into the Sci-Fi, its crazy to me that his last science fiction film was War of The Worlds in 2005. I couldn’t imagine any other director handling this movie with such grace as Spielberg did.
Ready Player One is written by Zack Penn and Ernest Cline. Zack Penn’s writing filmography consists of Last Action Hero (1993), X2: X-Men United (2003), X-Men 3: The Last Stand (2006), and The Avengers (2012). Ernest Cline was the original author of the book Ready Player One that was release in 2011 and his writing filmography consists of Fanboys (2009). I found this movie genuinely funny and I thought the script was great, Its always a good sign to me when the author the book helps with the script, its even more so when its clear to me that the author of the book is clearly a geek and is proud of it. There were a couple of small cliches in the script, but that doesn’t matter because you’re too busy having a damn good time watching it.
Ready Player One stars Tye Sherdian as Parizval/Wade, Olivia Cooke as Art3mis/Samantha, Mark Rylance as Anorak/Halliday, Ben Mendolson as Sorrento, andSimon Pegg as Odgen Morrow. Theres a bunch of other actors in the movie, obviously, but I don’t want to provide any spoilers at all, so I only concentrated on the main characters.
Tye Sherdian’s filmography consists of Tree Of Life (2011), Mud (2012), and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015). I never knew this guys name until today, yet i’ve seen his movies, but i can’t exactly pinpoint the exact characters he played, so I can’t compare to other roles. I thought Sherdian did a great job as Wade. He was the typical hero character, but he played it quite well. It was just a badass when he went into the OASIS and was Parizval, you couldn’t help but root for him.
Oliva Cooke’s filmography consists of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) and Bates Motel {TV Series} (2013-2017). Cooke was absolutely amazing in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), like honestly, if you haven’t seen it please watch it as it is an excellent movie, and its a lot of fun if you’re a film fan, as the premise of the film is these two friends remake films for fun starring themselves. Back to the task at hand, apologies. Cooke was excellent in this movie too, I thought she had great chemistry with Tye Sherdian in the real world and in the OASIS world, I thought their bond worked well together. She even stole a couple scenes I though, she was lovely.
Mark Rylance’s filmograpy consists of Bridge of Spies (2015), and Dunkirk (2017). Mark Rylance is glorious, he is super underrated and deserves to be in more stuff. He was great in Bridge of Spies, so much so that he won an oscar for it, and it was the first time he teamed up with Steven Spielberg. Mark Rylance was great in Ready Player One, he played the builder of OASIS and he even played the typical wise man in the film, and did a great job. It was very whimsical when he was on screen, even in the real world.
Ben Mendolson’s filmography consists of Vertical Limit (2000), Animal Kingdom (2010), Killing Them Softly (2012), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), The Place Beyond The Pines (2012), Black Sea (2014), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), and Darkest Hour (2017). Ben Mendolson has a very recognizable face, but I don’t think many people know his name, which is a shame. He is an excellent actor, he really was excellent in Animal Kingdom, if you haven’t seen it, they adapted it to a TV series (which I haven’t watched yet) but the movie was excellent and that was when I really took notice of Mendolson and have watched a lot of his stuff since. He reminds me sort of like a Gary Oldman, he can play any role and show up anywhere. I thought he did a great job in Ready Player One, he played his role of Sorrento very well.
Simon Pegg’s filmography consists of Band Of Brothers {TV Series} (2001), Shaun Of The Dead (2004), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Hot Fuzz (2007), Star Trek (2009), Fable III {Video Game} (2010), Paul (2011), Mission: Impossible 4 – Ghost Protocol (2011), Hector and The Search For Happiness (2014), Mission: Impossible 5 – Rogue Nation (2015), Star Wars: Battlefront {Video Game} (2015), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and Star Trek: Beyond (2016). Simon Pegg is always fun to watch, you know you’re in for a good time when he’s attached to the movie. He was more of a quality over quantity in this role, but he played it well none the less.
The acting in this movie was great, no surprises here.
THE SOUNDTRACK TO THIS MOVIE was so good, like the movie literary starts with Van Halen’s “Jump” and just escalates from there. We get a little bit of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going To Take It.” It just added to the whole ensemble of the movie, and just made me smile.
The technology in this movie was mind-blowing too, there were times where I didn’t understand how they filmed some of the stuff, but as I said in the beginning of this review, the smile didn’t leave my face throughout the entire run time.
My favourite part of this movie was all the references that were made, I feel in a way that this movie was made for me. I am a huge fan of pop culture, have vast knowledge and trivia about film and I love video games. So for a fan of these wonderful things, to have them all show up on the big screen, just made me happy and left me nostalgic and happy.
Honestly, this movie was made for pop culture fans, not for the critics. I guarantee you’re going to have a good time, and it’ll be a conversation piece for you and your friends to discuss the different references you saw.
I can’t wait to buy the blu-ray.
I give Ready Player One a 5/5.
Just go and have a ball, I can’t wait to go again.
-Andrew