Ready Player One

⭐⭐⭐

This film starts as it means to go on, with the foot on the throttle. The first scene opens with Van Halen's Jump, where we meet Parzival, the avatar of Wade Watts who is plugged into the OASIS, an online virtual reality world where you do what you want and be who you want. Hence why he's at the race start line, driving a Delorian from Back to the Future and his avatar has silver/blue hair. He, along with everyone would rather live in the VR world than the dilapidated and dingy real one.

This film is based on the book of the same name by Ernest Cline - I really enjoyed the book, it was so written by a nerd of the 1980s who was obsessed with arcade games and films. I didn't get all the references but it was fun, unique and bonkers. I'm not sure it was really filmable to be honest, as there is alot to cover in 2 plus hours. Too much perhaps.

The premise of the film / book is that James Halliday, the creator of the OASIS (VR world) has died and started an online treasure hunt to find 3 keys within the OASIS,  if you get through the trials and gain all the keys you'll be the new owner of the OASIS and its trillion dollar empire.

Because this film was packed with 80's references - it's hard to spot them all, you'll need to pause the Blu-ray frame by frame, once it comes out. The visuals and special effects are outstanding and you expect nothing less from the great Steven Spielberg. There is a particular standout scene where they go to The Shining film in the OASIS - it's a very cool concept and also terrifying, to be in your favourite film built does also mean you have to fully experience the horrors too. I'd probably just experience the Pixar films.

Overall, this film is very fun and enjoyable - I just thought it was all spectacle and less on character, the avatars are quite bug eyed and the villains are maniacal corporations out to get the people, we've seen that, next!

Plus it was quite different from the book which threw me too, but I understand you can't really do full book to film adaptations. I would definitely recommend seeing it in 3D! I can totally see this being a ride at Universal soon.