READY PLAYER ONE, Spielberg, virtuoso of the cinema of tomorrow – Critical

For his 32nd feature film, the king of entertainment has never been more deserving of its name. With READY PLAYER ONE, Steven Spielberg returned to the science-fiction and reinvents pop-culture. Announced as the movie of the decade, READY PLAYER ONE, is it really ?

We waited for far too long. On social networks, the simple mention of the project could cause a tidal wave of tweets and debates without end. Even before its release, the film was largely about him and was expected everywhere, by everyone, or almost everyone. Based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Cline, qualified bible for geeks, READY PLAYER ONE is already named film of the decade, ensuring even to Steven Spielberg its place within the art and entertainment without limits. For many, the project stops at an endless list of references to pop-culture. Everyone is free to do what he wants but it is finally removing all of the depth and the virtuosity of the film. It is in any case what is striking, when one takes a step backward on what we have just seen, to understand how Steven Spielberg has appropriated the literary work into a feature film-a striking, inventive and creative. It’s simple, the developer of the 71-year-old seems to have no limits. It makes you wonder if it does not hold the secret of eternal youth as his gaze, his vision and his perception of the world in a constant state of change is remarkable. This is finally it the thread of his filmography, which brings together all its themes, all his inventions and all his creativity : his acceptance of the past, his excitement for the future and his understanding of the present. A mix that it always manages to nuance, to highlight and illustrate.READY PLAYER ONE is a science fiction film that, like all good science-fiction movies, is not devoid of reality, but that, on the contrary, it inserts perfectly. A single sentence from the movie might we make floor on the subject for four hours : ” only the reality is real “. Out of context, one might think that Steven Spielberg is part of these “old farts” who do not seek too much to understand the world of evolution in which they live and who mull over constantly the past punctuating all his thoughts by a phrase ” it was better before “. But it is without counting on the director who over the last 45 years, shows us his mind vivid and clear. This story is a godsend for Steven Spielberg , who has never ceased, through his films, to examine the evolving technology, both great medicine and the evils of our world. Well before Black Mirror, he questioned the world, and in this case the viewers on this theme, always one step ahead. When, in 2001, it brought together the human and the robots in A. I : Artificial Intelligence, here, in 2018, it connects the virtual and reality with an observation much less sad, but still as deep.

The young Wade Watts, like most people in 2045, takes refuge in the virtual world (as a lot of people in 2018). Most of his friends are there, friends that he has never met IRL (understand in ” real life “), however, no negative message is brought through this just the caveat ” don’t tell your true name to anyone “. An observation which may seem a little naive and dopey but that is easily forgotten as the boundaries between the virtual and the reality are very thin. These very thin boundaries, Steven Spielberg juggle, mixing of real scenes and virtual scenes without ever becoming unreadable. A scene can even contain the two, without ever making the viewer totally crazy while the characters, there are perfectly even playing with these two worlds not so far removed from the one and the other.In addition to a solid script, the dad ofE. T., brings a realization of the fluid and virtuoso where the camera spins without getting lost. It is certain that visually, the film is one of the best of the decade because it not only has a incredible scene but it also serves as a full the about. It is difficult not to think of that scene in the movie, totally enjoyable for the audience moviegoers, in which the heroes find themselves immersed in one of the films of Stanley Kubrick. Not only Spielberg recreates in every detail the world of the cult movie (with uncertainty, we even think that it passes from the digital format to film format) of the film-maker disappeared, but he appropriates it to serve his own movie. In this single scene, he manages to tell the audience that nothing is sacred, and by extension that pop culture is not a sacred religion, that one can appropriate it, change it, use it with, obviously, a lot of love and respect. Spielberg not distort the work of Kubrick, he paid homage to him, he uses it intelligently just like the multiple references in READY PLAYER ONE , which sometimes winks at its own cinema.

In questioning the reality and the virtual, Steven Spielberg offers a clear observation about the current world. Still, with its ability to explore, demonstrate and qualify the world in which he lives, the director offers, a new time, a film can be dizzying, where his creativity and his mastery in the implementation, for the moment, no equal. Everything is almost too controlled, and it may be one of the only negative points of the film : the lack of pure emotions. If for all the movie lovers, it is quite easy to be moved by the image, where each plan is packed with a dozen of ideas, vis-à-vis the scenario and characters, there is a small barrier that prevents us from being transported. If only history will reveal if READY PLAYER ONE is the film of the decade, it is certain that it is mark and mark the spectators of today and tomorrow.

Pauline Mallet

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