A Spoiler Free Review of Ready Player One

In 1981, an author named Gary Wolf wrote a novel about cartoon characters living amongst humans.

In 1988, this book was adapted into a film titled “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. Now, some of you may be wondering, what does this have to do with Ready Player One? Well, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was (to my knowledge) the first time several companies came together and allowed the use of their properties. It was a pop culture gold mine for the day.

Back in 2011, Earnest Cline released his novel Ready Player One. This book was a pop culture leviathan, most of which I was either much too young to get, or know it from second hand sources. Regardless, the story was engaging and the characters were not only relatable, but they were well thought out. I loved it as it quickly became one of my favorite books.

That said, I had been looking forward to the film for the past two years. Not going to lie though, I was very worried about what I would see within. Ready Player One, being majorly inclusive with characters from many different companies and sources. I was honestly a little worried about what sort of characters they would be able to keep in and which they’d have to omit due to copywrite license.

Basically, the story goes as such:
A massively rich, but socially inept game creator dies and leaves behind an Easter egg in his magnum opus virtual reality video game called The OASIS. The person who finds the egg will become the sole owner of the OASIS and inherit his massive fortune. Naturally, everyone wants to find the Easter egg and searches day and night to find it. Even going so far as to memorize as many parts of 80’s and 90’s pop culture as they can.

So, to properly grasp why everyone is fighting so hard to find this egg, the world has gone to shit. The economy is gone and The OASIS is the only means of education and work.

Once the first clue is uncovered, it becomes a race between the big corporate giant and those who want to keep the OASIS away from said corporation.

So, I went to see the film last night. Right from the start I was blown away with the visuals and score. The film basically opens with the race scene from the trailer, and as fast action scenes go, it was very well paced. There wasn’t a single moment I didn’t know what was going on, and the film makers didn’t shy away at throwing a lot at the viewer. Come to think of it, all the action scenes were paced well. Not too slow so as to lose the audience’s attention, but not too fast that the audience can’t keep track.

The visuals through the film were captivating. From the stacks, which were painted so vividly in the book, that when watching the film, it looked as if they had taken the image from my head. The use of CGI to recreate certain famous scenes from a particular film was especially impressive.

The music in the film was well picked, using a series of songs from the ‘80s that not only accentuated the scene but fit the mood as well.

The villain was a little cut and paste, you’ve seen his type before and we all know we will see it again. But, he was that sort of villain in the book too. He’s the head of a huge business that is partnered with the OASIS video game. He wants people to pay to play and give packs to those willing to pay the big money. Like I said, we’ve all seen this before.
Ready Player One manages to make itself as a bit of an anomaly as well. At the beginning, we are given a massive info dump about the back story of the OASIS as well as the world people live in. Normally, this would be the sort of thing that would drag a film down. Nobody wants to hear a narration for five minutes or more about how their world works, after all, show don’t tell is a major rule.

The thing is, this film does show while it’s telling. Besides, a story like this almost requires a bit of an info dump at the start. Especially for those who haven’t read the book, or didn’t know it was based on a book.

The five main characters (known as the high five) are easily the best part of the film. Parzival, Art3mis, Aech, Sho, and Daito all maintain very clear and distinct personalities.

For those looking for an accurate adaptation of the book, I’m sorry but you are going to be sorely disappointed. I say that because there are a lot of parts in the book that straight up can’t be adapted into film. There would be a lot of very dull parts and a lot of scenes that just wouldn’t make any sense.

Instead, we got an excellent film filled to the brim with pop culture references, that not only don’t date the film, but ion a way could almost make it timeless. Video games are a huge part of our lives, just as movies and Television were at times. With our nostalgia filled generation, a story like this was bound to happen. It was a good story, with great characters and a concept, though a little dated, felt like it could happen if the circumstances were right.

I give this film 9 out of 10. It gave a lot to see, and I’ll be more than happy to watch it again and again, if anything, to catch more and more of the pop culture that is clear, not only will not go away, but we don’t want it to either.

If you have yet to see Ready Player One, go see it now. If you’ve already seen it, go watch it again. I know I plan to.