Spielberg revisits 1980s heyday in 'Ready Player One'

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In a world where virtual reality (VR) is getting popular, today seems to be the perfect timing for Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One" to open in theaters.

A still from "Ready Player One". /Photo via douban.com

Best known by Chinese filmgoers for "E.T." and "Jaws," Spielberg is returning to his favorite target – the adrenal gland.

Starring Tye Sheridan, the thriller is based on a 2011 novel about a teenager on a treasure hunt in a virtual reality game, in a world torn apart by an energy crisis.

Sheridan plays teenage gamer Wade Watts, who finds himself inside an addictive virtual reality world called Oasis in the year 2045.

"Ready Player One" is rated 9.2 out of 10 on Chinese movie review platform Douban. /Screenshot

The film got a remarkable 9.2 points out of 10 from 5953 viewers on China's leading movie review platform Douban. It also yielded a 78 percent "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which described it as "a sweetly nostalgic thrill ride" that played to Spielberg's strengths.

Not everyone is on board, of course. The Chicago Reader described the sci-fi epic as an empty "special-effects maelstrom" in which a taciturn Sheridan is in constant danger of "being out-acted by his own avatar."

A still from "Ready Player One". /Photo via douban.com

You can do anything

In the world of Oasis, Wade encounters 1980s pop culture icons such as Freddy Krueger and the Iron Giant, and gets to race the DeLorean from "Back to the Future" as he weaves to avoid huge wrecking balls.

King Kong, R2-D2, the Joker and Mechagodzilla all get screen time while the classic 1960s Batmobile whizzes through the streets – and there is even a glimpse of the Overlook Hotel from Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (1980).

"I was born in 2025, but I wish I'd grown up in the 1980s, like all my heroes," Wade says in voiceover.

Spielberg told the Comic-Con crowd in San Diego, where the movie was previewed last year, that the source novel by Ernie Cline was "the most amazing flash-forward and flashback at the same time about a decade I was very involved in – the 1980s."

A still from "Ready Player One". /Photo via douban.com

The veteran filmmaker said he had relished directing a sci-fi feature about the dystopian world people would be living in almost 30 years in the future.

"People are leaving the country and all of a sudden virtual reality gives you a choice, gives you another world to exist in," he said.

"And you can do anything in that world – anything you can possibly imagine."

Spielberg actually cut most of the novel's references to his own movies, but this hasn't stopped critics suggesting that the big-screen "Ready Player One" is a kind of cinematic autobiography.

Wednesday preview screenings gave the production, scripted by Cline with Zak Penn ("The Avengers"), its first 3.8 million US dollars, and it is expected to come out of the four-day Easter weekend atop the domestic box office with 45-50 million dollars.

The Chinese market has also reported more than 32 million yuan (five million US dollars), in box office as of Friday noon.

(With input from AFP)