Another video game movie that isn’t about a specific game. Instead, this one’s all about a fictional MMO style game called Oasis. The movie is set in the future but not so far it seems unrealistic that they’d still be talking about modern culture. Oasis is played through what everyone in our time wants VR to be like.

With the characters there’s obviously a hero, a love interest and a few extras as their friends, all reasonably likeable but no different to other films of this style. Since the movie frequently switches between real life and a computerised view we get different levels of realism but personalities stay the same. The Oasis graphics are really good and watchable, the art style choices are quite good.

The plot is about a corporate leader trying to take over Oasis so he can make money. The creator of Oasis died and left ownership up to an in-game competition where three keys which are gained by succeeding at challenges, this will then grant the first to succeed an egg which confers ownership to that person. With our heroes as underdogs we watch as they take on the corporation’s armies both in and out of the game.

It’s a fairly standard family/teen movie which doesn’t get too dark at any point meaning we know the hero’s going to win. Where this film shines is the properties involved, it’s almost as impressive as Who Framed Roger Rabbit with what it manages. Overwatch, King Kong, Batman, the DeLorean, The Shining and so much more. This movie is so packed with gaming, movie and general media culture it’s truly incredible plus there’s a decent bunch of songs thrown in too.

Ready Player One doesn’t make a huge amount of sense as a title but the main character does become number one on the leaderboard so it’s not too bad either.

The movie dragged on a bit longer than I’d have liked but even with it just being an average quality, standard story the culture references alone make this one worth watching at least once.