Movie Review - Ready Player One

MegaSoulhero I saw Ready Player One last weekend! Before I start this review, I wanna point out that some of you have said that I get a little too angry when it comes to movies. That it’s bad when I say writers should die or when I bring up a director’s dead daughter. And I just want to say that I regret that you feel that way. Now instead of acknowledging my mistakes, let me get to talking about Ready Player One!

The movie takes place in the year 2045. A teenager named Wade spends his time inside a virtual reality world called the OASIS. The creator of the game, James Halliday, played by Mark Rylance, hid an Easter Egg within the virtual world for people to try to find and win his fortune as well as gain control of the OASIS. So Wade, with the help of some friends, attempt to win before a corporation known as the IOI win and gain control. I feel like it’s no coincidence that this movie came out on the weekend of Easter. Anyway, I wasn’t too excited for the film. I never read the book and from what I saw in the trailers, it looked like it would just be a movie with nothing but pop culture references and would rely too heavily on nostalgia. I’m gonna be honest, I was getting a little worried in the first 5 minutes because it looked like it was going that route. But it ended up getting better as it went on. I actually think this is a pretty good movie. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. One of my favorite things about the film is some of the references. Which is the thing I was worried about when going to see the film. While some references seem like they’re just there just to be there, like Minecraft, some references actually fit perfectly in the story. I thought the Shining scene was pretty funny. Despite some of the dialogue in that scene being terrible. I also thought the characters were very interesting. I like how well they work together to figure certain things out. Despite communicating in a virtual world, it feels like they’re actually connecting with each other. A performance that I thought stood out was Mark Rylance as Halliday. If you saw the BFG, his performance in this is kinda similar to that. Which isn’t a bad thing. I actually think it’s pretty cool. I also enjoyed the villain. You can tell through his actions that he is power hungry and will stop at nothing to gain control of the OASIS.

As for negatives, I really hated the romantic relationship between Wade and Samantha. I am tired of movies forcing in romantic subplots. It adds absolutely nothing. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just been friends and not more than that. It really took me out of the movie. There was even a part when Wade tells Samantha “I am truly in love with you.” If they’re gonna have these characters fall in love, they shouldn’t have the characters verbally say they’re in love. I was reminded of Attack of the Clones when he said that. Characters should express their feelings through expressions and their actions. Show and don’t tell. And that leads to another problem. The movie relies heavily on exposition. It feels like they have to tell us every 5 seconds what’s going on. Coincidentally, the next movie I’m gonna review does the “show and don’t tell” thing perfectly. I love how much detail is put into the virtual world. The action scenes are very well done. Especially the final action scene. However, I felt like the CGI wasn’t very good. Which didn’t get me as captivated with the virtual world as it should have. I have nothing against CGI. I think it can be very good at times. This movie is where I had a problem with it. The live action scenes have very little CG though.

Ready Player One is a good movie with great characters, clever references, and a very smart story. It does have problems though. The CGI is an absolute joke and the forced relationship between the two main characters is very unneeded. Still, it’s very enjoyable. I recommend seeing it if you haven’t already.

Score: 7/10

Comments

The movie's a complete pile of garbage in all honesty; see my /r/RalphTheMovieMaker post about my personal experience with it for more info - xandermartin98 (7/7/2018)

I really loved the movie a lot. Someone better invent a time machine so I can get the Oasis VR Game. - visitor (7/16/2018)

I really liked it - iliekpiez (8/29/2018)