Now Watching: Ready Player One

Ready Player One may be the most vacuous movie I’ve seen in years. It’s the cinematic equivalent of an eight year old smashing their favourite toys together. It’s a movie completely devoid of substance. The plot is paper thin, the characters are shallow, the world is poorly constructed and the action is lame. The best thing I can say about Ready Player One is that the pop culture references aren’t as obnoxious as I feared.

Ready Player One opens with a 20 minute expository voice over introducing us to Wade Watts, the hero who must enter the virtual world of Oasis to find three magical keys.

These keys grant whoever holds them total control over Oasis – plus a f**k ton of cash – and Wade needs to find them before the nefarious IOI Corporation can stop him.

Wade isn’t the most likeable protagonist. When he first meets Artemis – AKA Love Interest – he forcibly prevents her from attempting to get the first key because he doesn’t think she can. It’s a dick move, and a totally unnecessary one considering there’s no real danger in the virtual world.

She can’t actually be hurt or killed, so why not let her try? It’s like playing a video game with someone and then snatching the controller from their hand before they tackle a boss because you don’t think they’re good enough to beat it. It’s just f**king rude.

And the lack of a real threat in Oasis is a problem which persists throughout the movie. What happens in Oasis doesn’t really matter. There’s no real stakes, tension or consequences. If you die, you can just respawn. If you fail, and can just restart.

The movie also goes out of its way to establish certain rules – actions performed in Oasis must be performed physically in reality. Wade uses an omni-directional treadmill, although how he can afford it considering how poor he is, the movie doesn’t even try to explain. Does he have a job? Does he earn money in Oasis? How?

But Ready Player One happily breaks these rules whenever it’s convenient. Characters flip about or move in ways which make no sense if they’re supposed to be performing these actions in reality. But I can’t say I’m too fussed about the logical inconsistency because the movie really isn’t worth it.

I think the most irritating aspect of Ready Player One is the ‘relationship’ between Wade and Artemis. Wade ‘falls in love’ with her in the Oasis after about five minutes and she rightly tells him he doesn’t even know who she is – not in reality. You might think the movie might do something a little more clever or unexpected with this notion, but you’d be wrong.

It turns out that Artemis is just a pretty girl with a barely noticeable birthmark. Seriously? And that’s why she thinks Wade would be ‘disappointed’ if he met the real her? At no point does Wade consider she might be disappointed if she met him. And, of course, she also ‘loves’ Wade because . . . because it’s in the script, I guess? This is the point Ready Player One feels more like a teenage wank fantasy than an actual plot.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Wade had some kind of character arc or growth and realised that Artemis wasn’t just a fantasy but a real girl who can easily handle her own shit – but he doesn’t. Hell, even at the climax he shoots her avatar because he doesn’t trust that she’s capable of looking after herself.

Actually, the most irritating part of Ready Player One is the ending. Wade gets the keys to Oasis and learns a most valuable lesson – reality is . . . more real than a virtual one? No shit, Sherlock! He then decides he’s going to switch off Oasis for a couple of days each week to force people to ‘experience reality’.

But the whole point of the movie was to prevent the IOI Corporation from gaining control of Oasis and keeping it free and open for everyone. By deciding you’re just going to prevent people from using it on whatever days you feel like . . . isn’t that just as f**king bad? What if people work the rest of the week and only get to play Oasis on the days he’s decided they should ‘experience reality’? F**k those people, I guess?

It’s not like people can live in Oasis. They need to eat. They need to work. What Wade is doing is the equivalent of shutting down Steam, PSN or X-Box Live two days every week because he feels like it. Want to chill after work and play some games? Not today, asshole! You need to go out and experience the real world! Maybe they already have and just want to relax in their own time, not when Wade decides they can.

I guess it’s an easy position to take when you’re a billionaire and can do whatever the f**k you want, but does Wade forget where he began? Living in a dingy shack? What about all those other poor sods still living in dingy shacks? What are they supposed to do on the days Wade turns off Oasis? Sit around being miserable in their own filth? Oasis was an escape for Wade, but because he’s now rich he thinks it’s okay to deny that escape for everyone else? What a dick!

When I finished watching Ready Player One, I thought it was mostly just forgettable trash, but the more I think about it, the more irritated I am by it. The references aren’t as annoying as I thought they’d be based on the trailer – they’re mostly background candy and aren’t really relevant to the plot. Because that’s all they are – Things You Know. They’re not used in any kind of clever or interesting way. They’re just there to be recognised.

Overall, Ready Player One is a shallow, forgettable, empty and meaningless movie with nothing interesting to say. Avoid.

4/10