READY PLAYER ONE
READY PLAYER ONE
Are you having one of those days?
You know exactly what I mean–you just had a lousy day at work … got chewed out by the boss … only to come home and immediately be confronted by the landlord for back rent. There’s no food in the house and your little bundle of joy–Jeffrey Jr.–is totally apoplectic in his two-year old rage.
That’s when–short of jumping on an airplane and taking a one-way flight to Timbuktu–you flick on the TV and watch some mindless cooking or football program as you drift away of a different and far less complicated life.
Well, I have the perfect movie for you.
“Ready Player One,” written for the screen by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline, from the latter’s bestselling 2011 science fiction novel of the same title, takes us to Columbus, Ohio (USA) in the dystopian Year 2044. We are introduced to and follow 19 year-old Wade Watts (Ty Sheridan from 2016’s “X-Men Apocalypse”), an orphan whose father gave him a name with the WW initials … thinking it would be something cool like Peter Parker.
Brought to the silver screen by the maestro director, Steven Spielberg, “Ready Player One” takes the movie audience into a virtual reality world of endless possibilities where we are introduced to “The Oasis” and the mastermind behind this unending virtual world, James Halliday whom the media has been heralded as a genius greater than Steve Jobs, creator of Apple, Inc.
Sprinkled through “Ready Player One” are touches of other Spielberg films (and many other fantasy films) such as “ET,” “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and “The Iron Giant” because in the Oasis if you can dream it, you can live it without going anywhere.
And as long as you don’t blink, you’ll also see Beetlejuice, Supergirl, Batman and even the Gale house from “The Wizard of OZ” that propelled Dorothy to a world far away from Kansas.
I really liked the references to Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” movies and seeing the T-Rex from Spielberg’s original “Jurassic Park” was a hoot.
Not to mention the sudden appearance (early in the film) of King Kong tearing up New York City.
With Halliday’s death, he leaves behind a virtual contest. If you enter and conquer the Oasis—that is find three glass keys which are scattered far and wide—you not only win but have complete control over humanity’s VR future.
During his search for the keys which will give him the final “Easter Egg” hidden within the Oasis, Watts and nearly everyone else in his real world, occupy the “stacks,” triple-decked motorhomes that are plopped one on top of another as far as the eye can see.
When this incredible, one-in-a-lifetime offer is made, the young Mr. Watts (in his alter ego of Parzival) is hell-bent to find this elusive item and with it, Halliday’s massive fortune of one half trillion dollars.
Watt’s present reality in Columbus, and that of 99.9 percent of all humanity, is in the dregs as well as the American and worldwide economies.
But–and you know there would be a but in there somewhere–Wade and everyone else he meets has to eventually take off the VR glasses (as well as a form fitting tactile suit) and return to that really crappy life we call mortality and the people who inhabit this “real world” are total losers.
There is always something new and exciting to do in the Oasis but when Wade has to interact with other flesh and blood humans, they are all slouching and moaning their way through each day.
Collective humanity has seemed to forgotten the real emotion of feeling the sun on your face here in the beautiful Philippines or seeing a snow storm on a lovely Christmas Eve in Boston.
Instead, everyone (as in EVERYONE) on the planet is jacked into the Oasis.
As Wade moves within the Oasis ever closer to winning the contest, humanity’s most evil empire conspires to take him down.
They blow up his real-life “stacks” home and he has no other alternative but to join in with “The Rebellion,” a group of likewise 20-something misfits on a last ditch effort to save humanity.
Gee, that does sound like a movie press release, doesn’t it?
Not.
Ben Mendelson (who was terrific in being bad in “Rogue One”) plays Sorreno, who first becomes aware of Wade’s alter ego (Parzival) in the Oasis and then starts an all-out war both in our physical real world and the virtual one as well to take out anyone who stands in his way of obtaining the three magical keys.
Wade’s virtual/real gal pal (Art3mis/Samantha) is played by Olivia Cooke of whom I didn’t care for at first offering but really did by the film’s climax when she and Wade team up against Mechagodzilla.
Actually the best part of “Ready Player One” is when Parzival and the gang enter the world of “The Shining” and the Overlook Hotel.
Truly creepy and very bloody.
Those scenes alone are a warning to all parents not to bring any of their small children along … yet as in all Spielberg films, the good guys always prevail and the same happens at be close of “Ready Player One.”
Actually, a better presentation of a gritty future world in Spielberg’s own, “Minority Report” back in 2002. There, Tom Cruise is a far stronger leading man than Sheridan is here in “Ready Player One” who is constantly saved from a last minute “fade to black” demise.
I do recommend “Ready Player One” to all of you hard working Cebuanos who have just had a lousy day.
Go find a babysitter for little Jeffrey Jr. and take in this film—best seen on one of the local IMAX screens for its visual breadth—but don’t forget to check your brain at the lobby entrance and simply enjoy!
Questions, comments or travel suggestions, write me at theruffolos@readingruffolos.com.