Ready Player One is the new science fiction adventure film based off of the 2011 book of the same name. It is directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg and stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, and Mark Rylance. This one of my most anticipated movies of the entire year and it has been getting a lot of praise from critics. Let’s get into it shall we? In my opinion, Steven Spielberg is the greatest movie director in the history of cinema. So whenever he has a new movie coming out; it’s automatically on my watch list. It also helps to have a movie with such an interesting concept. In Ready Player One, Earth is in a semi post apocalypse world. Everything sucks so everyone spends their time in the virtual world called the Oasis. You can see the rest of the plot down below in the trailer. So knowing all of that, expectations were high for this movie and boy did they deliver! I loved Ready Player One.

A major part that Ready Player One realizes on is pop culture from the 70’s and 80’s. In some cases, it can be a cheap grab at nostalgia. But here, it works fluently and it fits in with the story. Plus, I can’t deny that I got pretty excited when the Iron Giant showed up. As for the performances, I thought everyone was great. Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts was a very likeable protagonist and someone everyone could get behind. Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook was also great as the rebel of the group. But Ben Mendelsohn was the standout as the villain. He is the typical corporate asshole who just cares about money. But Mendelsohn does such a great job of making you hate him that you have to root for Wade and Sam.

I also thought the Oasis itself was amazing. It was so well crafted and as a huge nerd myself, it was so cool seeing all of the Easter Eggs from pop culture. The special effects looked great as well and that was important considering half of the movie takes place in a virtual world. But the thing I loved the most of about this movie was the message of the film. Spielberg has never been afraid to put political commentary into his movies and he does the same here. It’s a commentary about net neutrality as well as fear of technology. But ultimately, it’s a story about loving what you believe in and standing up for what you believe. No one does that better than the great Steven Spielberg. In conclusion, Ready Player One is a fantastic time at the movies. The only aspect I wanted more of was a backstory of how the Earth got so bad. But that’s something minor to an overall great movie. Long live Steven Spielberg.

A/93%

Steve Santoro (SVS_1993)