The Current Cinema - John Snadden gives short shrift to READY PLAYER ONE (Steven Spielberg, USA, 2018)

I didn't think much of Ready Player One. 

Apart from a great opening sequence, it's your typical bloodless and sexless Steven Spielberg movie where the kids are all right and the adults all corrupt. 

The film mainly takes place in a video game universe named Oasis and is based on the bestselling novel of the same title by Ernest Cline. Strangely, with its deluge of 1980s pop culture references, I'm wondering who the target audience is for this big budget commercial flick.

Ben Mendelsohn is good value as the corporate bad guy however the role is so clichéd and predictable he wears out his welcome quite quickly. But he is in sharp contrast to the film's mythical figure, Halliday, a legendary games programmer who holds the keys to the kingdom, though, he is depicted physically and personally as an uncomfortable mix of an aged Woody Allen and Dana Carvey. 

Maybe that says more about the film than anything else. Oh well...