Ready Player One came out on March 29th 2018. Opening weekend box office sales were 41.76 million. The film was widely acclaimed with an audience approval rating of 93%. Steven Spielberg, delivered with great cinematography in many of the scenes which brought life to much of the movie. The film is generally fast paced and keeps you interested throughout; however, the third act feels as though it really lingers unnecessarily. An impressive score by Alan Silvestri makes scenes even better and added a lot of atmosphere. It also has some pleasant surprises such as implementing the theme from the classic 1954 film Gojira into the theme of the final battle.  This does end up connecting to a big surprise during the scene that will be sure to satisfy those who are big fans of old Japanese kaiju films.

The overflow of pop culture references does sometimes bog down the scenes though; however, it usually doesn’t affect one’s enjoyment of a scene. Those who are well versed in cinema and gaming culture will often catch themselves smiling at a reference to obscure content as well as that of the mainstream.

The two central characters, Parzival/Wade, played by Tye Sheridan and Art3mis/Samantha, played by Olivia Cooke had very good performances, especially Olivia Cooke who plays off the emotional scenes very well, which Sheridan does seem to have less expertise in. Ben Mendelsohn is also great as Sorrento, the main villain who he portrays perfectly as the arrogant maniacal head of a corrupt corporation.

Although despite these performances, there were some cringey one liners.  While few and far between, they got pretty bad such as when Parzival literally says to Sorrento “A fanboy knows a hater.” While the performances were done well, the film doesn’t really have very well fleshed out characters which can make you care a little less about them. However you do develop a lot of care for the oasis and the race to keep it out of the wrong hands which will keep you going through the slow parts. While Ready Player One  definitely does have some room for improvement, it really excels in many areas.  Spielberg does well, and it is definitely worth a watch. An appropriate score for this film would be an 7.5/10.