Ready for an escape

“THESE days, reality is a bummer. Everyone’s looking for a way to escape.”

This is both the key line and the big takeaway from Ready Player One, a fast and furious futuristic thrill ride that is the most fun a Steven Spielbergdirected movie has been in many, many years.

Adapted from the 2011 bestselling novel by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One opens in the year 2045, where America has fallen into a state of grotty, grey ruin.

If the squalor does not seem to bother people that much, it is only because virtual reality technology has given them somewhere better to go.

Much of the general population now commutes on a daily basis to a VR gaming environment known as OASIS. Inside this dazzling alternative dimension, players are competing to complete a mindboggling, multi-environment maze called Anorak’s Quest.

This stakes are high in Anorak’s Quest, which is the creation of the late and muchadmired designer of OASIS, James Halliday. The first player to find three keys hidden by Halliday inside the game will inherit his $500 billion estate and total control over OASIS.

Anorak’s Quest has been running for several years, and the player who stands the best chance of winning is Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), whose flair for puzzle solving is further boosted by his intricate knowledge of Halliday’s life.

Ready Player One is first and foremost an action adventure movie, and Spielberg’s filmmaking instincts wisely sense that audiences will be fascinated by the rich and relentlessly shape-shifting world of OASIS above all else. And it will bring on a total sensory overload to anyone whose DNA carries any trace of geek, nerd or gamer.