I didn’t care for Ready Player One, the novel written by Ernest Cline. It was a vapid, empty-headed excuse for an adventure story with a main character that was so thinly written he could have been a cardboard cutout. Taking place in 2045, in an economically depressed United States where most people live in trailer parks that have the trailers stacked one on top of each other, the only reason for living for most is the Oasis, an online “world” that’s created by a deceased Steve Jobs-like genius named Haliday.
Before he died, Haliday created a game within the Oasis where players had to collect “keys” by solving riddles and surviving endurance tests. The player who received all of the keys would then become the ruler of the Oasis (as well as becoming set for life, financially). As can be expected, many people have been on the hunt for these keys, including a multi-billion dollar corporation that wants to further commercialize the Oasis once they seize control of it.
The problem that I had with the book was with the main character of Wade, who was a dedicated gamer that knew everything there was to know about the life of his hero, Haliday. It’s the sort of unhealthy hero worship where the worshiper knows so much about the person of his affection—every last detail—that his own identity becomes lost. This was the problem with Wade, and since the book was written in the first person narrative we were stuck with his narrow-minded world view, and if you don’t like the main character of a story, that pretty much trashes the story itself.
However, to my surprise, I loved the movie version of Ready Player One. Directed by Steven Spielberg—a guy who knows a thing or two about making a smart blockbuster movie—Ready Player One, the film, wisely avoids slavishly following the book’s dopey story. The changes they make in the story not only cut it down for a cinematic run time, but they’re also smart, intelligent choices that uplift the project as a whole.
Tye Sheridan was a good choice for Wade; his performance is subtle, lacking the manic, hollow-headed intensity that made the book-version of Wade so off-putting for me. Plus, he manages to make Wade come off as being an expert on all the little details of Haliday’s life without losing his own humanity. Olivia Cooke is wonderful as Art3mis, a legendary denizen of the Oasis who teams up with Wade on his quest. And she’s involved in one of my favorite scenes in the film—one that made me laugh out loud when I first saw it—involving the Alien chest-bursting scene.
Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One) continues his own quest to play every version of the nefarious baddie in as many pop culture movies with his solid performance as Sorrento, the CEO of the evil corporation that wants the Oasis for its own ends. And speaking of pop culture, the various cameos by heroes and villains from movies and TV in RPO are fun to see, and add to the enjoyment of the film.
Before RPO came out, there was some hand-wringing in the entertainment media about whether or not Spielberg still “got it.” Having seen this modern day fairy tale (which is the apt tone that Spielberg chose to tell this story in), I think it’s fair to say that he never lost “it.” He took a flawed story and polished it up into a vastly entertaining, epic tale that can be enjoyed even by people who don’t play video games. --SF
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