Ready Player One takes place in the not-so-distant future–the world has turned into a very bleak place, but luckily there is OASIS, a virtual reality world that is a vast online utopia. People can plug into OASIS to play, go to school, earn money, and even meet other people (or at least they can meet their avatars), and for protagonist Wade Watts it certainly beats passing the time in his grim, poverty-stricken real life. Along with millions of other world-wide citizens, Wade dreams of finding three keys left behind by James Halliday, the now-deceased creator of OASIS and the richest man to have ever lived. The keys are rumored to be hidden inside OASIS, and whoever finds them will inherit Halliday’s fortune. But Halliday has not made it easy. And there are real dangers in this virtual world.

This is for the movie, not the book, I haven’t read the book and frankly I may not read it. Nothing against books, I just have a large pile of books to get through and …ok books about someone else playing video games sounds boring. Not just a little boring, but booooring.

The movie however was a visual delight, just as long as you go in with the expectations of an over the hill director taking a lazy attempt at cashing in on a lifetime of movie accomplishments. For the most part, sure he succeeds and there’s not much to complain about for someone that hasn’t read the book and is looking at the entire affair without the expectations from a much larger and in depth story. I do have some complaints, but they’re easily overlooked or explained away:

• why no ugly people in the movie? because it’s an action summer movie and ugly people don’t sell tickets
• why does it seem like every “nostalgic” element is from either Spielberg’s catalog or from Warner Brothers? because talking about a thing is free, but showing it means you have to license it, and this is a Spielberg directed WB film.

It was a fun movie. Maybe I’ll read the book sometime soon before it comes to retail and I can compare the two.