Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Virtually terrific
has completed even one of Halliday’s three challenges, the first two of which lead to keys and clues to keep going.
Among those trying to complete the quest is Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), who long ago was an intern at Gregarious Games, the company Halliday ran with longtime best friend Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg). Now, he heads the large, greedy Columbusbased IOI, which no doubt would take the OASIS in a direction Halliday never envisioned. (Wade refers to Sorrento by a derogatory term that ends in “weed.”)
Thus, Wade is determined to complete Halliday’s first challenge, an insane urban road race complete with a changing course and, among other dangers, King Kong. (Nobody makes it past Kong.)
It is at the race that we meet the virtual object of Wade’s desire, the beautiful Art3mis, who rides a motorbike and is about as talented as Parzival, who commands the famed Delorean.
After Art3mis’ bike is damaged in the challenge, Parzival gets a friend to fix it for her. She appreciates it — and seems interested in him as he is in her. However, the pair form what at best could be considered a loose alliance.
That will change as the story “Ready Player One” deepens, of course, as the stakes become bigger than at least Wade initially realizes.
The aforementioned road race is just one of the exhilarating and visually impressive sequences in “Ready Player One,” its best parts coming via digital animation and motion-capture performances.
The buffet of pop-culture references are a blast, too, even if they seems heavy on Warner Bros. properties — “Ready Player One” — and apparently differ greatly from the books. There were surely rights issues for the studio, and, apparently, Spielberg wanted some of Cline’s references to his films removed. (That probably explains the multiple references to Zemeckis.) But, hey, regardless of how he got there, it’s great to see the Iron Giant walk again, as he does during the climactic stretch of “Ready Player One.” And you may want to prepare yourself for a weird, fairly deep dive into the 1980 horror classic “The Shining” in the middle of this film.
Speaking of legendary geek Cline, he adapts his own novel — with the help of screenwriter Zak Penn (“X-Men: The Last Stand,” “The Incredible Hulk”) —
READY PLAYER ONE
and does a fine job. (At least one prominent online posting proclaims the movie an improvement over the book, but we’ll leave that one for the book’s fans to decide.) While just a little bloated, the story keeps you invested through the conclusion. Heck, even the film’s exposition-heavy opening few minutes — we’re talking about a serious data download here — doesn’t weigh things down.
As for the on-screen talent, whether fleshy or pixelated, Sheridan (“X-Men: Apocalypse,” “Mud”) helps make Wade/Parzival a fairly compelling hero, and Cooke (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” “Bates Motel”) complements him nicely as Art3mis and, eventually, a young woman named Samantha. The actors share solid chemistry in both realms.
On the one hand, Mendelson could play his role in his sleep — Sorrento is just a slightly different version of the actor’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” villain, Director Orson Krennic — but he’s nonetheless effective as the big bad here.
Meanwhile, Rylance — a Spielberg regular in recent years, having appeared in 2015’s “Bridge of Spies,” for which he won an Academy Award, and 2016’s largely ignored “The BFG” — is distractingly odd as Halliday. Sure, a creative-genius type can be weird, but the talented actor doesn’t exactly feel right for the part.
Spielberg has been better, too, as recently as late last year with “The Post,” and “Ready Player One” doesn’t really have the emotional impact you might hope. However, this movie is a big task, and it’s really well-executed. The veteran filmmaker undoubtedly is as responsible for that as anybody.
On the big screen at least, Cline’s story works as both cautionary tale — “Ready Player One” feels at times a bit like “The Matrix” and other dystopian-future films — and celebration of video games and pop culture. It wants us to enjoy gaming, as well as “Back to the Future,” “The Iron Giant” and Batman, but within reasonable limits.
That’s a winning idea, so, by all means, plug in get ready to play.