Steven Spielberg comes back early in 2018 with this futuristic, VR gaming movie where virtual reality has taken over actual reality. The plot surrounds this virtual world, named the Oasis, and its creator, James Halliday. Halliday creates the Oasis with just about no rules to what can happen in it and who you, as an avatar, can be. The Oasis was creqated to be an escape from reality, but soon turns into reality for anyone who has access to the game.

Halliday dies and leaves an Easter egg hunt of three keys. If a player finds all three, they gain control of the Oasis and the bank account of Halliday. The film follows Wade Watts who, in the Oasis, is known as Parzival. He goes on a quest to hunt down all three keys with in his long time online friends and against an entire gaming company. The plot is executed profoundly well.  The Oasis is revolved around gaining these three keys, and everyone does what they can to hunt them. Halliday created this hunt around himself. His beliefs, his hobbies, his personal life, and his interest in life. Anything that defined him could’ve been a clue to gaining a key.
He allowed his life to be as open as he could so the public could find hints or clues as to how to gain a key. He has archives dating back to when he was a kid playing video games, and everyone is scrummaging through them for the hint to the easter eggs.

This movie heavily resembles people’s modern day obsession with the internet, and how famous people can mold pop culture. Take Fortnite for example.
The game has every gamer pumping hours into it, and some of the references implemented into the game are becoming mainstream. The John Wick skin has young gamers watching John Wick movies, the dance from Scrubs has people streaming Scrubs heavily. What the flim captures very well is the behavior these players have with each other, in the game and out in reality. In the game there is banter, the inside jokes they have, the common interest.

In the real world, there’s that awkwardness when first meeting each other. The surprise of how they look, the small talk, such and such. They know each other but they don’t. It’s that line of virtual reality and actual reality. The film, visually, is amazing. It really captures the graphics of a video game, the futuristic look and idea of virtual reality.
“Ready Player One” really captures the concept of how virtual reality wants to expand in the near future, and the consequences that concept could lead to if it does. Which makes the film so interesting not to just gamers, but to anyone who has a phone, an imagination, to anyone who wants an escape.

Rate : 7/10