Ready Player One: Movie Review

2018. 13+ on Amazon, PG on IMDb

Eat your heart out, sci-fi fans. This movie is busy with cult classic references from beginning to end.

So much so that it both contributed to and hindered my enjoyment. 

This film has a dual personality: it’s styled for young adult audiences with masses of adrenaline to spare as well as for the older audience who will actually get all the film and video game references from the 70’s to 90’s. For example, the funeral parlour scene at the 8-minute mark is loaded with Star Trek references and paraphernalia. Pause the movie and find them all, Trekkies.

The demand on adrenaline did make it overwhelming, while regularly providing pleasure in recognizable references . . . until their avatars walk into The Shining and I had to fast-forward for the next ten minutes to avoid re-living bad memories of a previous encounter with said film. That scene alone should have pushed the movie up to 14A on all platforms, but the raters seem to think horror is innocent fun. I disagree.

The storyline has great moments, but the plot holes gnawed at me: for example, there’s no indication of what’s happened to the rest of the world outside Oklahoma City, although there would have access to the networked gaming system.

My favourite line is from James Halliday: Reality “is the only place you can get a decent meal.”

So, I didn’t feel I had a full-on love-hate relationship with the movie, just a like-dislike. Its ideal audience is a North American media facts junkie, 14 and older.

Review written by: Jazmine Lawrence, Captain (Retired, RCAF), BSc Honours Physics, MA (Theology) student, future sci-fi author