Ready Player One: Level Up Required

The Bank Holiday weekend is slowly coming to a close, and some of you, like me, may have spent your well deserved time off at the cinema to see Spielberg's latest blockbuster - Ready Player One. The film currently holds a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and rightfully so - its a meta-driven spectacle with an amazing performance by Mark Rylance as the tech genius James Halliday. Though this sadly is where the praise comes to an end, as anyone who has cherished the book will testify....

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

The internet wouldn't be the same without a classic rant, and what better form than in a good ol' fashion list.

1. 80s Soundtrack?

The film starts strong with Van Halen's Jump, but then just disperses into generic John Williams style themes. Where was the pumping 80s electro/pop/hair metal that we were promised in the trailer? So many of the action sequences could have done with fun catchy familiar tunes! Call me cheesy, but weren't you slightly expecting "Livin on a Prayer" or "Final Countdown" to blast out? Instead we only got a last minute inclusion of Twisted Sister and a weird "Stayin' Alive" segment. I mean, I'm not looking for a Guardians of the Galaxy level of tunes, but something better than what we got!

2. Stick to the period

The magic of Ernest Cline's book was that he managed to capture 80s nostalgia in the pages of his book many years prior to shows like Stranger Things. The central character of James Halliday grew up in the 1980s - his quest, obsession and vision of the world was all built around that decade - so why does the film insist on making it a general homage to geek culture? Not just in the avatars that depict fictional characters spanning right through to the 2010s, but silly things, like how Halliday's favourite game is now Golden Eye! In essence the film should have had more 80s stuff, and to keep it front and centre, as demonstrated with the racing scene.

3. Stop explaining references!

For a film that gets a kick out of the concept of "easter eggs", it sure likes to explain stuff! Various points of the film annoyed the hell out of me, whereby characters would explain references that were largely apparent. Parzival putting on Michael Jackson's Thriller jacket and then exclaiming "the jacket from Thriller" or the appearance of Chucky being met with dialogue tantamount to "Ohh look it's Chucky from 1988's Child's Play, directed by Tom Holland". This level of patronising spoon feeding was an almost constant and grating presence.

4. *jump to the final key*. THE END

The film had one job! One job! To be a quest! The main narrative priority was the quest. The kind of on-screen quest that Gary Gygax could only dream of! So why in that case was the whereabouts of the final key (out of only 3) discovered with no amount of explanation? After all the fun of the fantasy race track and the Overlook Hotel earlier on, why does IOI suddenly find it without any need of the riddle? The film has a 2+ hour runtime - there was no need to rush this in favour of terribly scripted character development of the "high 5".

5. Better world building

IOI is a big international company, on a scale larger than Google and Apple combined. So why does all the big evil corporation scenes only take place in either the CEO's office or the small VR hub? Couldn't we have some establishing shots of IOI in other countries? Something that visually elaborates on how much of a threat the company posses, with shady anonymous share holders. Nolen Sorento, one of the most powerful men in Spielberg/Cline's vision of 2045, getting comically thrown into a conveniently placed police car took away any remaining sting the villain had.

There are good bits to this film, but overall it could have been much better. As a parent would say "I'm not angry... I'm just disappointed"!