Steven Spielberg enjoys the reputation of being the most successful and influential American filmmaker in recent years not so much because his films have broken box office records as due to his exceptional ability to recognise and harness new trends, thereby paving the way for those who follow. Thanks to this, Spielberg can boast not only an exceptionally prolific but also a diverse filmography, meaning his contemporary films bear little resemblance to those he made several years ago. Naturally, this has been aided by his practice of offsetting every ultra-commercial summer blockbuster aimed at children and teenagers with a serious, ‘engaged’ autumn drama designed to chase ‘Oscars’. Ready Player One, which was released in 2018, belongs to Spielberg’s ‘summer’ repertoire but is particularly intriguing due to its utmost efforts to be ‘hip’—that is, in line with everything the youngest generations supposedly love, or at least what older generations believe they love.
The film is based on Ernest Cline’s eponymous 2010 novel, one of the first to draw inspiration and subject matter from the phenomenon of MMORPGs—multiplayer online video games in which millions of players create vivid avatars and virtual identities, and around which an impressive virtual economy has already emerged. The plot, meanwhile, is set in the relatively distant future—2045—when the world has become a polluted, overpopulated, and increasingly inhospitable place, making it understandable that most of its inhabitants have turned to Oasis, a virtual reality game where they can do almost anything they desire and become what they can only dream of in the real world. One such player is the narrator and protagonist, Wade Watts, alias Parzival (Tye Sheridan), a teenager from Columbus, Ohio. Like many players, Wade becomes obsessed with the grand hunt initiated by Oasis’s creator, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), shortly before his death. The goal is to find the so-called Easter eggs—keys that will grant the winner not only unimaginable material wealth in the real world but also control over Oasis. Wade is aided in his quest by a group of colourful virtual friends, though he becomes far more captivated by a player named Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), whose avatar he falls for. Complicating matters, the quest is infiltrated by the corporation IOI, whose director, Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), dreams of seizing control of Oasis to dominate the world, stopping at nothing to achieve this in both the online and real worlds.
The extent to which Spielberg and the film industry have evolved over the past few decades is best illustrated by the fact that during filming, Spielberg scarcely needed to set foot on set. Scenes shot in the traditional manner—with live actors, physical sets, and conventional cameras—last approximately 11 minutes, while everything else was recreated using CGI and animation at Industrial Light and Magic studios. By comparison, Jurassic Park, which left audiences awestruck a quarter of a century earlier with its revolutionary special effects, featured only eight minutes of CGI. Considering Spielberg had already mastered CGI-driven filmmaking with the animated Adventures of Tintin several years prior, it is entirely understandable that Ready Player One emerges as one of the most visually impressive Hollywood films in recent times. However, the numerous scenes reconstructing the fantastical virtual worlds inhabited by the protagonists will hold even greater appeal for viewers well-versed in popular culture, particularly that of the 1980s, as the film teems with pop-culture references (explicitly acknowledged by characters as integral to the plot), encompassing films, TV series, pop music, and, of course, video games. Perhaps the most impressive of these scenes is Spielberg’s homage to his friend and colleague Stanley Kubrick, using CGI technology to guide the protagonists almost literally through Kubrick’s iconic horror film The Shining. Cynics, on the other hand, might argue that Ready Player One is at least partially autobiographical—that Spielberg attempts to present his own self-image to the audience through certain characters. This applies both to the character of Halliday, portrayed by the unrecognisable yet brilliant British actor Mark Rylance (drawing inspiration from Steve Jobs), and to Wade, played by the far more pallid Tye Sheridan, likely cast due to his relative physical resemblance to a young Spielberg. The rest of the cast is largely up to standard, though some of the finest talents, such as Simon Pegg, are relegated to near-forgotten cameos. Mendelsohn, meanwhile, excels as Sorrento, delivering one of the most striking yet oddly plausible villain portrayals in contemporary Hollywood cinema.
Despite the exceptional talents both in front of and behind the camera, Ready Player One falls far short not only of perfection but also of Spielberg’s highest standards. Despite efforts to diversify characters in today’s ‘politically correct’ context—such as casting Black lesbian actress Lena Waithe as Wade’s virtual friend Aech—the usual moral guardians have identified what they deem unacceptable sexism by today’s standards of champagne socialist sensibility, complaining that the protagonist’s heroic quest is motivated by heterosexual impulses toward a female character, thereby reducing Art3mis, despite being portrayed as a ‘strong, kick-ass female heroine’, to a mere ‘trophy’. However, Ready Player One suffers more profoundly from another form of disconnect with modern generations and their perspectives. This primarily stems from its foundation in 1980s nostalgia, meaning the film will be most appreciated and enjoyed by the fathers and grandfathers of its target audience. Even more problematic is the unanswered question of whether the 2045 world is a utopia or dystopia—that is, the ambiguous stance on whether a virtual world controlled by capitalist oligarchs, even those as likable as the geeky Halliday and his young heirs, represents part of the solution or part of the problem in the future world. Ready Player One, of course, attempts to depict the future optimistically, much as Spielberg’s Hollywood did with the present during the Obama era, giving the world a thumbs-up. Yet this may reflect less Spielberg’s faith in a better future than, at least within the context of this film, an unjustifiably rose-tinted nostalgia for a better past.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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