★★½☆☆
20 March 2018
A movie review of READY PLAYER ONE. |
"I just came here to escape, but I found something much bigger than myself," Wade Watts/Parzival (Tye Sheridan)
The year is 2045, and the world's economies are in the toilet, and the second largest corporation is trying to own the number one. There is no explanation or exploration of why there is vast economic inequality. Do the filmmakers not care, or are they leaving it to the audience to extrapolate? Before 2016, I would have said the viewer shouldn't be talked down to. After Brexit and Trump, it seems large swathes of the population do need things spelled out. How depressing. In this future, things are worse. Hope has left the equation. People find themselves addicted to the "Oasis".
The year is 2045, and the world's economies are in the toilet, and the second largest corporation is trying to own the number one. There is no explanation or exploration of why there is vast economic inequality. Do the filmmakers not care, or are they leaving it to the audience to extrapolate? Before 2016, I would have said the viewer shouldn't be talked down to. After Brexit and Trump, it seems large swathes of the population do need things spelled out. How depressing. In this future, things are worse. Hope has left the equation. People find themselves addicted to the "Oasis".
The Oasis is a digital galaxy effectively replacing the internet. Here, the world sees it as a vast game to escape the grim everyday. (In the novel, the Oasis was also used for business and school. Jettisoning this aspect creates a lumpen moral about the dangers of device addiction). Virtual reality hardware - glasses, gloves, haptic suits, omnidirectional treadmills - are there for immersion into game playing and collecting coins. Is there a point beyond coins? This adaptation does not capture why the Oasis is important. For that, you need to read the novel. Without prior knowledge, the movie is a more simplistic experience.
The film also lacks the grandiosity of the source book. The stakes don't feel as compelling. It tries to translate the tension into action sequences, to mixed effect. The realm is about the harnessing of imagination, which we get little of. A hungrier director might have sculpted something electrifying. At no point did I feel I was watching something innovative, quite the opposite. The ending is THE MATRIX and AVATAR, and SPIDER-MAN. Use of light flares echo STAR TREK (2009). There is a cacophony of crummy CGI. The lead is HARRY POTTER bland, with more interesting supporting pals. The real star of READY PLAYER ONE is Olivia Cooke.
Even at two hours 20 minutes, READY PLAYER ONE feels rushed, like the first HUNGER GAMES movie. Time was needed to world build. The project would have been more at home as a mini-series, like GODLESS for instance. Columbus, Ohio, we are told in voice over, is the fastest growing city in the world. We are told too much, rather than shown. The originator of the Oasis died five years ago. Before passing, James Halliday (Mark Rylance) created a CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY-style competition. Whoever completes the tasks first will inherit control of the company.
What READY PLAYER ONE does do well is celebrate teamwork and camaraderie, understanding the link between honest vulnerability and true friendship. A superior immoral foe, here an unethical corporate monolith, meets a bulwark in the form of humanistic solidarity. Though this is not in the same league as sci-fi action brilliance, SNOWPIERCER, but then what is? The future includes corporate poor houses, but the political commentary is not as biting as hoped for. The villain is frustratingly one-dimensional. Action sequences aren't RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or WAR OF THE WORLDS accomplished; instead feeling pedestrian. There is a lot of not-amazing-looking CGI characters crashing into each other.
Godzilla, King Kong, The Iron Giant, etc., there are plenty of pop culture references, but most zoom by. The playing on such landmarks is disappointingly absent. There is no clever subverting of icons. (Do you remember INKHEART (2008) doing something similar with novels? That wasn’t great either.)
Is Spielberg totally out of touch? Can a billionaire make something of relevance? His body of work, for a long time, has the feel of a broad-brush. This maybe controversial, but he hasn't made a five star film since INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989).
Read the novel for a more exhilarating experience.
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