Ready Player One
Starring: Ben Mendelsohn and a cast of unknowns
Mark this one as the project on which Steven Spielberg both jumped the shark and simultaneously disappeared up his own fundament.
Definitely one for the geekboys and fangirls, Ready Player One is Spielberg’s jaunt into his own unpopular, wedgie-suffering youth.
The plot takes us to a future nightmare world of dodgy vertical trailer parks where pretty much the whole population escapes into the virtual game world of the “Oasis“.
Sounds too much like today’s dystopia? It’s more like a particularly retarded Avatar.
You’d have to be one of the millennial fish swimming in today’s digital streams to really get it, I think.
Anyhoo, the lead fanboy is searching for keys hidden in the game to take over the Oasis, save it from evil corporate overlord Ben Mendelsohn, and let freedom ring.
Kill me now.
And along the way, the geek fanboy in chief will find friends, and love, and all the usual. They say there are only so many real plots, and God knows you’ve seen this one often enough.
It was a mood emulated in the cinema for me, where the rest of the audience seemed as heartily disengaged as I was.
It was easy to focus on the guffawing numpty two seats down, or the ADHD kid behind me who wouldn’t stop yelling for his mum and relentlessly kicking the back of my seat.
Both were more entertaining than this wallpaper of an overlong film.
Special mention to Ben Mendelsohn, the only halfway watchable thing on the screen.
And as for the rest? Avoid at all costs.
– Jason Beck
