It’s been seven years since Steven Spielberg made a so-called “blockbuster” with 2011’s The Adventures of Tintin, but the legendary filmmaker made a triumphant return to genre territory with Ready Player One. The sci-fi adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 80s-infused book offered Spielberg the opportunity to blend cutting-edge technology with a “boy with a dream” story, and the result is a visual marvel. The film is now available on 4K Blu-ray, so we took a look to see if this is one that’s worth owning.
The Film
Ready Player One takes place in the year 2045, where many of Earth’s cities have essentially become slums. Humanity has an escape, however: the OASIS. This is essentially a VR internet—a service that folks can “log into” and then live out any number of fantasies. They can play games, go shopping, exercise, or just hang out with friends. Everyone’s connected, and it’s the brainchild of Gregarious Games founders James Halliday (Mark Rylance) and Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg).
Before Halliday’s death, he hid an Easter egg inside the OASIS, with the edict that whoever found it would be given full control over the OASIS. The path to finding the egg is unlocked by discovering three keys, but years have gone by with no discoveries. That is until young Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), a Halliday superfan, makes the first discovery, kicking off a race to win control of the OASIS. Not only is every other person in the OASIS on the hunt, but Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), the CEO of a major corporation, has enlisted hundreds of his employees to crowdsource the discovery of the egg as well.
While Ready Player One may not be of the quality of iconic Spielberg blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark or even War of the Worlds, it’s still a fascinating and ultimately entertaining throwback of sorts. Spielberg is having fun with this movie, and while it’s a bit disappointing that it doesn’t dig very deep into humanity’s obsession with screens, it’s still a fun ride packed with a couple of showstopper set pieces and jaw-dropping effects.
Bonus Features
A lot of studios these days are skimping out on the bonus features aspect of Blu-rays and DVDs, but I’m happy to report the Ready Player One Blu-ray actually has a pretty hefty lineup of special features. The disc includes five behind-the-scenes featurettes that amount to a nearly two-hour documentary on the making of the film. It covers how Spielberg first got involved, the lengthy casting process, the unique production process that essentially resulted in making two different movies, the score, and the visual effects.
There’s a lot to unpack here, and some great footage of Spielberg on set working with performance-capture technology. There’s also a great albeit brief dive into how they crafted the Shining sequence, and there’s a good deal of time given to the visual effects—including how two different visual effects houses worked on two very different aspects of the film. While I would have loved to have seen a more comprehensive documentary in line with the ones covering David Fincher's films, Spielberg fans will undoubtedly be pleased by what they find here.
Is It Worth the 4K Upgrade?
For the OASIS scenes, yes. Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski made the apt decision to frame the real-world scenes as gritty, lacking in color, and very tactile in order to reflect the mundanity of the real world versus the OASIS. The result is that the live-action scenes lack the pop and verve of the OASIS scenes, so they don’t really amount to much with the 4K transfer. But the OASIS scenes themselves look magnificent in 4K, and since 60% of the film takes place in the OASIS, that makes this worth the upgrade.
The fascinating part about the OASIS scenes is that even though it’s an entirely digital environment, the lighting and cinematography reflects how one would shoot that environment in the real world. The result is something far more photo-real than, say, Tintin, and since there are plenty of shadows and contrast, the 4K really allows you to soak in the artistry on display.
So if you were a fan of the film when it came out, or are a Spielberg fan who's merely curious about this one, Ready Player One is worth owning. If you're 4K-ready, splurge for the upgrade.
