There’s a phenomenal sequence early in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One: Countless vehicles rev their engines at a starting line, the air electric. The race starts and the cars peel out, speeding and skidding over twisted, contorting roads, launching into the air and spinning into crashes. And from this high, Ready Player One plunges straight downhill. Adapted from Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel, Ready Player One takes place in two realities: One is a vague American dystopia where people spend their time logged in to a virtual world, the OASIS. The OASIS is where most of the film takes place—anyone can do whatever they want there, but for reasons best described as “strained,” all these characters want to do is relive the pop culture of the 1980s and ’90s. The film just dumps a bunch of action figures on the table and makes them fight. It’s nostalgia for the sake of nostalgia, and by the time its end credits roll, one wonders if there was anything worth being nostalgic about in the first place.
Varsity and Admiral tickets here. by Erik Henriksen