Ready Player One: Hyper Reality Human Playground
- Kemal Gema Ramadhan
- Apr 15, 2018
- 4 min read
A brief history lessons about pop culture through gaming experience
So now there is a new movie showing in your nearest cinema, Ready Player One. It is one of the most hyped movie this year, the reasons behind that hype is the trailer. The trailer or teaser shows some clip where all of video game, movie, and music icon from 80’s or 90’s era will appear in this movie. Directed by the long lost legendary director Steven Spielberg, His works is undoubtly already known across the globe. As you know this movie is about video games or morelike high-tech virtual reality device that can give you a complete new experience, the main characer played by Ty Sheridan one of the young actor with great talent you have seen him at X-Men:Apocalypse. At first i highly sceptical about this movie because it’s about a video game, and in my experience it never ended very well. But how about this movie? can Spielberg made another Box Office movies? Let’s check it out!
The Main Story
The main story tells you about a world where all the people play a game called the OASIS, a hyper virtual reality game experinces where you can do anything in there. One day the maker of the game, Halliday (Mark Rylance) died. Before he dies, he left a message an open tournament to find the easted egg inside the OASIS the prize? To be the new owner of OASIS which valued about billion or trillions of dollar. To be honest, for me the story isn’t that interesting. It is about good vs bad kinda thing, but i think the simplest thing can be really good if you know how to tell it. There are three parts of story in this movie and all of it described the quest that all the characters must finished. For me all of the quest is very simple yet very exciting, Racing, maze and a classic video game easter egg. The whole story tells if you really want to win this tournament you have to really know about the maker, Halliday. Perzival (Ty Sheridan) is a fanboy, so this thing is his mastery. For me the answer at the end of the quest isn’t so shocking except the third quest , i like the story when they are trying to figure out the meaning of the quest.
The third quest is very special for me, besides it’s the last quest but the meaning of the quest is really deep, “you only have to play to finish it” that is the truest meaning of playing a game.The story really relies on its popular culture references, the true power of the story and the dialogue is inside the references. Steven Spielberg really knows how to handles moral of the story, he really knows how to present a heart warming message inside the movie but again the story isn’t something special but other factors are special.
The Character
well maybe the character in this movie isn't original especially all the cameo behind, but if we take a look the high-five they are really unique and amazing. Although all the appearances inside the OASIS is different from the real world, their behavior are still the same. With a proper acting skills and enhanced by animated figures plus CGI, i think Spielberg created a new cool and loveable characters. He isn't try ing to exploit the traits of each character which is good because it can spoils the story and it isn't about one character it's about all of it. The villain in this movie is perfect, Sorrento (Ben Medelsohn) is a perfect picture of a greedy and ruthless businessman, but at the end we knew he is still a nerd and a fanboy inside. Aech/Helen (Lena White) is one of my favorite character, and apparently she is a girl i knew it when she and Perzival arguing about teaming up with Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), first of all maybe she is jealous but i am really, really, really grateful there is no love triangle conflict in this movie.
The Technical
I'm gonna be quick about this, the angle of the camera is very exhilarating particularly the part of the first quest and the last battle. How they combined all of the elements inside a scene is worth watching, at the first quest in racing scene all of the obstacle seems very thrilling, the sound effect, the explosion is the strongest component inside the scene. They mix all of the chaotic elements nicely and pretty tidy i said, because some of the movies that did that sometimes makes the audience confused or dazed because of too many action to be seen in one shot. The last battle is very exciting, how they take the camera angle like a bird view is brilliant it shows all of the aspect in that battle.
Conclusion
I love this movie, all of the elements in this movie really proves me wrong when i'm being skeptical at first. Maybe the story isn't the strength of this movie but it is still interesting. However, the main support of this movie is the nostalgic experience that they feed to audience, so if this movie stand alone without that factor it isn't so strong. Spielberg once again bring so much joy and experience and this time he tried a different approach, he bring the same exhilarating moment like when you watch Jurassic Park and other Spielberg movies, this kind of movie became a proof that it's his expertise to play in this genre.
Wiseacre Rating
The Main Story: 7,0/10
The Character: 8,0/10
The Technical: 9,0/10
OVERALL RATING: 8,0/10
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