'Ready Player One' Is A Beautiful Reminder Of The Wonder Steven Spielberg Brings To The Table

***There will be NO SPOILERS for ‘Ready Player One’ in this blog***

Hello and welcome back to Rob’s Monday Morning Movie Review – a segment who’s name I should probably change at this point. Rob’s Monday Morning Movie “Review” is admittedly more often me gushing over a movie than it is actually being a film “critic”, so maybe that’s inappropriate verbiage I’m using there. Every now and then a ‘Snowman’ or a ‘mother!’ comes along and deserves a big-time roasting, but generally I’m looking to pull the positives out of any and every movie. Criticizing and nitpicking others’ art maliciously just for the sake of doing so is no way to live life for me, and I understand that I could be respectful and objective about it and do whatever actual critics do, but that’s just not what I set out to do. As a blogger, I’ve always tried to just make my passion for the things that I love transparent. You hear me talk about how much I love Star Wars and pro wrestling and mixed martial arts all the time, and for movies, it’s the same deal! Lots of ‘em are released every week and if you can’t find ONE you enjoy, I don’t know what to tell ya. Seems like a miserable existence. Now let’s talk about a movie I loved.

‘Ready Player One’ takes place in the not-so-distant future where Columbus, Ohio has become the fastest growing city in America and the world in and around it are on the verge of collapse. Our main character, Wade Watts, lives in “the stacks” which are quite literally stacked trailer parks that look like garbage as far as the eye can see, and like everyone else in the world, he’s obsessed with the “OASIS”. The OASIS is a virtual-reality video game created by a man named James Halliday where you can be anybody and do anything, so you could see why a world on the brink of chaos would find refugee in that. Plus, when the game’s creator died five years prior to the movie’s starting point, he hid an Easter Egg in the game that’d provide the person who found it with unlimited fortune in both the OASIS and the real world, so pretty much everyone is obsessed with the challenge. When Wade makes the first big breakthrough to the egg, it put a target on his back and the race truly begins.

Now, I was really excited for ‘Ready Player One’, I was. I hadn’t read the book or anything, but I saw the trailer, knew that it’d be a plethora of nerdy references, knew I’d be the film’s target audience, knew that it was Spielberg, all of that. When I went into the theater to see it yesterday, though, I just wasn’t in the mood. I had slipped away from my family’s Easter celebration, barely finding the time, I didn’t feel great, and the odds were not ever in this flick’s favor to be a pleasant moviegoing experience for me. I had other shit on my mind…until the very first time I saw the OASIS.

For as positive as I am when it comes to movies, I also think I’m pretty jaded to them. It’s not often I see something in a movie that puts my jaw on the floor, especially not just because it’s “cool”, but the OASIS did. As Wade Watts’ inner-monologue played throughout the theater and we were taken in and out of the worlds that the OASIS provides, I was looking at Batman and Master Chief and Freddie Krueger and all of this cool shit from our world on the screen together in awe. Then, the first race happens, and I instantly had one thought and one thought only come to mind: this is Spielberg. This sequence, the first race in the movie, is my favorite sequence in any movie all year and my favorite since anything in ‘The Last Jedi’. It shows pretty instantly that while Spielberg mighta been focused on historical pieces the past few years, he hasn’t lost a step in the sci-fi/fantasy department. The man is 71 years old and you could still feel the passion for film he has from behind the camera like you could in ‘Jurassic Park’ or ‘E.T.’, and taking that even further, he still understands how to take an audience through an experience in the cinema.

My guy Ben Mendelsohn CRUSHES it as the big baddie for ‘Ready Player One’ and had hints of Paul Gleeson as Assistant Principal Richard Vernon in ‘The Breakfast Club’ in his performance (in the BEST way), the references and little things on screen for half a second are so much fun to look for, and the “gameplay” if you wanna call it that, is so enthralling you feel like you’re on this adventure with Wade for the entire 2 hours and 19 minutes this film runs for. I don’t even want to give any more of the movie away, because I went in fairly blind and promise you that’s the best way to see this flick. Just trust me on this one.

‘Ready Player One’ is my favorite movie I’ve seen this year, and if I find myself with an extra few hours at any point during which it’s still showing in theaters, I’ll be checking in to the OASIS for repeat viewings. I can’t recommend it enough. You’ll probably even find a few of your own personal favorite pieces of pop culture referenced in it.