By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waith, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen, Susan Lynch, Ralph Ineson, Perdita Weeks, Clare Higgins, Letitia Wright, McKenna Grace, Lulu Wilson and Mark Rylance.
Rating: Excellent.
Three time Academy Award Winner Steven Spielberg brings “Ready Player One”, his most recent Science Fiction/Adventure film that brings very good results.
Based on the Novel by Ernest Cline, the movie centers in Wade (Tye Sheridan) a Gunter who lives with his Aunt in Columbus Ohio and spends most of his time in the Oasis, a virtual reality world where he uses the Avatar “Parzival”.
Everything will change for Wade when the creator of the Oasis James Halliday (Mark Rylance) dies and challenges every single one of the players to find an Easter Egg which is hidden in the Oasis. Whoever is the lucky one will inherit his fortune and will have control of the Oasis.
Wade´s motives are higher in participating and he will do it with the help of Samantha/Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), Helen/Aech (Lena Waithe), Shou/Zhou (Philip Zhao) and Daito/Toshito (Win Morisaki).
The major obstacle that Wade will be facing is Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) the CEO of Innovative Online Industries who also wants total control of The Oasis and everything in it.
Now Wade and his “High Five” crew will be in a race against time on winning the race for the Easter Egg and have total control of the Oasis before it´s too late.
One of the things that I liked of “Ready Player One” is the originality of the film and the story as well. Both Zak Penn and Ernest Cline adapted a very good screenplay based in Cline´s book.
Normally when the author of another source material cowrites a screenplay with another screenwriter the results are not that positive; in this case this was the opposite and both Penn and Cline crafted an interesting screenplay with rich characters who you feel for them.
I liked the fact that this movie is set in the 80´s, which I consider one of the best times not only in film, but overall in culture.
Steven Spielberg with his direction set up this world in a very intelligent an clever way. I love the direction he took towards his actors, the choices in camera were very good as well and the editing of the film also speaks for itself.
I didn´t read the novel before I watch this movie and honestly I didn´t know what the movie was going to be about. This is one of the reasons why I did enjoy it more, besides the fact that I´m an eighties lover and made me enjoy it even more.
“Ready Player One” marks a first time collaboration between Spielberg and composer Alan Silvestri, who is well known for his work in films directed by Robert Zemeckis like “Back to the Future”, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, “Forrest Gump” and many others. Silvestri´s music in “Ready Player One” is engaging and creates a very unique tone in the film.
The chemistry between Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke is really good in this film. You feel for both characters and the love story between them is really interesting since both characters have similar conflicts and they are not annoying, which has been a tendency in this kind of films where the main characters have similar in personalities and can be everything but likable.
Ben Mendelsohn`s performance as Nolan Sorrento is very good and he is one of the best actors in playing this kind of roles. He is convincing, evil but at the same time charming in this role.
The only thing that I was not crazy about in “Ready Player One” was the amount of flashbacks that were used in this movie. I believe that with two by the most we would have get what was happening.
Spielberg has the tendency of making his movies very long. I don´t mind movies that have a long length but I feel in this case it could have been shorter. Still the movie does work and is really entertaining.
Steven Spielberg again despite of the length of his film, directed a brilliant and entertaining film that people will remember for a long time.
With that being said “Ready Player One” is a very entertaining film and if you are an Eighties lover you are going to love this film that I highly recommend.