I think it is kind of evident in the name of the film that this movie is designed to attract gamers to watch it, but in case it wasn't... well... yeah, they're looking for gamers and in that aspect this film is reasonably good.
I was actually surprised to find out at the closing credits that Stephen Spielberg was the director of this movie and if he has ever been in charge of a movie so dependent upon CGI up to this point....well, i am not aware of it.
This movie is action-packed that is for sure, but it also has a forewarning for the future built into it as the people in the film are entirely too attached to their online personas. I think all of us can take a look at ourselves in this: If you haven't been the person upset about a person spending too much time on their phone in public.... it is because you ARE that guy.
The people in the film are dealing with VR headsets rather than just instagram so provided Samsung doesn't start duping us into buying a slightly more expensive phone because it comes with a VR headset we are probably safe for a while.
The story takes place something like 50 years in the future (I am not going to look this up for accuracy because it doesn't matter) and basically everyone lives in a virtual world because doing so is preferable to being in their own real-life environment. People's entire lives are based around being able to afford additional equipment in the virtual world as well as being able to have upgrades in real-life in order to upgrade their online experience.
full suit, full experience
The person who created all of this, and I don't remember his name inside the film, has created a contest upon his death for the people inside of "The Oasis" (his utopian online world) to find 3 keys in order to become the new CEO and owner of the company. This is made public and obviously it is incredibly difficult to find these keys.
The group of people that are the good guys are established in the first 20 minutes of this 2.5 hour film and because it is an American film you are already very very aware of the fact that the person that you first see on the screen is going to emerge victorious in the end. It is just a question of how he is going to get there.
It annoys me that this film takes the usual Hollywood film progression of :
- outsider accidentally stumbles upon something amazing
- big corporate interests try to keep him (or her) out of it
- outsider meets some people to help him along the path
- outsider emerges victorious
but i will give it some upticks but these are almost certainly because of ease of accessibility because Stephen Spielberg knows people and copyrights don't apply to him:
- There are lots of nostalgic stuff including Godzilla, The Iron Giant, The Delorian from my favorite movie of all time, and even references to The Dark Crystal
- Coleco-Vision and Atari 2600 games are played inside the film... and most of the film takes place inside a game anyway. It's like a film-game-game vortex
- The special effects (CGI) are pretty awesome
- Erlich from Silicon Valley voices what is without a doubt the best character in the entire movie
the character is only awesome because TJ Miller is doing the voice
So this film says a lot about technology addiction and I believe they are correct in that and I like that the lesson they are trying to suggest towards the end is that maybe we should step away from it a tad. I say this even though I speak to you via one of those channels right now.
Here is the trailer that i didn't watch until 30 seconds before posting it here.
there is an awesome Depeche Mode song featured in the trailer
So anyway. I think the movie was too long. Despite the fact that I have loved video games and have a strong appreciation for the really really old-school games being represented in modern films I found myself frequently bored during this movie. I am resisting the urge to give it an additional point due to the fact that Steven Spielberg was involved because other than ET and Back to the Future, i don't even know what that guy has done.... i just know the name.
It's an OK movie. They aren't going to win any awards other than graphic-oriented ones (if they get that.) The acting is average and I wasn't brought to tears even once despite being quite emotionally fragile.
Therefore, "Ready Player One": get a rather unimpressive 5.5 / 10 overall.
Basically, watch it if your only other choices is to watch nothing ....or that Korean movie I reviewed yesterday .
I welcome your feedback, rantings, and suggestions.