Review: ‘Ready Player One’ Is Spielberg’s Best Film In A Decade Mark Hughes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2018/03/29/review-ready-player-one-is-spielbergs-best-film-in-a-decade/#48c5064a7081
With the official summer box office season fast approaching, the current spring of tentpole contenders continues apace with the arrival of cinema’s grand master of blockbuster franchise filmmaking. Steven Spielberg returns to theaters with Ready Player One, the sort of big-budget action-adventure extravaganza that turned the director into one of the most successful, beloved, and acclaimed filmmakers of all time. Can he work his magic again after many years away from the tentpole game?
With Ready Player One’s domestic opening weekend shaping up for $40-50 million, international markets will provide a welcome boost expected to exceed $100+ million over the Easter holiday. Some tracking suggests interest in the film is slowing a bit as we head into the weekend, but don’t be surprised if the numbers tick upward as the weekend progresses.
An average run would see a $150+ million global bow translate into perhaps $300-350 million range. If word of mouth is strong, however, then the initial relatively modest opening numbers (particularly in North America) could give way to solid holds and long legs that carry the film toward $400+ million territory.
With terrific critical reviews pushing it over 80+% at Rotten Tomatoes, a best selling novel to provide branding, Spielberg’s name recognition, and the story’s mix of video games and ’80s-90s nostalgia, there’s good reason to expect audience word of mouth to drive attendance for Ready Player One. It lacks any big-name stars who could attract an additional fanbase, but these days only a few performers really deliver that sort of star power anyway.
Spielberg used to be the poster boy for blockbuster box office results, as his films through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s regularly racking up several hundred million bucks apiece. After the turn of the century, Spielberg slowly turned his focus away from franchises and big mainstream crowdpleasers, and toward more serious dramatic fare. As a result, the box office revenue from his pictures declined significantly — which, of course, is fine for movies made without need for massive box office results.
Ready Player One will be Spielberg’s highest-grossing movie since at least The Adventures of Tintin, and more likely his biggest box office success since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It’s also one of only six of his post-2000 films to top 80% at Rotten Tomatoes, out of 13 total pictures he’s directed during that 18 year period. It could also become his second-best domestic performer in a decade, possibly behind only Lincoln, which took $182 million stateside).
So, why do I think audiences will reward Ready Player One with good word of mouth and long box office legs? Read on and find out…
I grew up on Steven Spielberg movies. Along with George Lucas, Richard Donner, Martin Scorsese, and Roger Ebert, Spielberg helped turn me into a lover of movies and defined my childhood relationship with cinema. My favorite movie of all time is Jaws, which I also consider among the best films ever made (alongside some of Spielberg’s other work, such as Schindler’s List). Even some of his less popular work is near and dear to my heart — most notably 1941, a film most critics and movie fans hate, but which I think is terrific and hilarious.
My childhood love of his work was defined by big mainstream blockbusters like Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. As I grew up, I became enthralled by his turn toward more purely dramatic productions like Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan that still attained big, bold storytelling of the “event cinema” sort and taking in blockbuster revenue around the world.
Nowadays, I also like and respect his recent films, which dial back the sense of large-scale production and blockbuster filmmaking, seeking and finding a comfortably restrained approach to grounded true stories or stories inspired by real events (seven of his last eleven pictures are this sort of storytelling). There are only two Spielberg feature films (out of 31 he’s directed) I’m not a fan of — The BFG and A.I., but I understand why other people like them and I see much to appreciate in both of them.
It’s been a long while since Spielberg released a film of the scale, tone, and action-adventure escapism found in Ready Player One. So while I like almost everything he’s made and have faith in his ability to deliver the goods when it comes to a wide range of filmmaking approaches, I wondered if so many years away from helming a big-budget popcorn production of this size and import might make him a tad rusty, or if his recent primary focus on restrained adult mid-range dramatic storytelling would diminish his ability to get back into the mindset of making popcorn fun that wins our hearts with a combination of sympathetic characters and sheer thrill-ride entertainment.
Well have no fear, dear readers, because Spielberg quickly brushed aside any such concerns and delivered his best movie in at least a decade.
When I say that, I don’t mean it’s necessarily got better acting than some other film you might mention, or that the cinematography is better than another recent film, and so on. I mean all around and pound for pound, Ready Player One is a brilliant parade of Spielberg’s finest skills and talents as a storyteller, a joyous declaration that the master is back in town to remind us he helped invent blockbuster tentpole cinema in the first place. This is a filmmaker remembering what it’s like to be a kid again, having fun applying the latest advances in cinema to his traditional approach and feeling that sense of discovery that shines through in his very best work.
I saw Ready Player One at the red carpet premiere in Los Angeles, at the historic Dolby Theatre. I’ll speak more about the visual particulars in a few moments, but to start off let me just say a premiere experience is always my favorite way to see these types of films — the energy in the room, the enthusiasm, the giant screen and beauty of the classic theatrical setting at Dolby, and of course the visual and audio quality always combine to turn a premiere screening into a magical event.
It always ultimately depends on the movie delivering the goods, of course; but when the film is great, a premiere can wash away all of the business trappings and other external considerations or sentiments that get in the way of being transported by cinema and just giving yourself over to the glory of moviemaking. A premiere is sort of an idealized fantasy version of what the theatrical experience should be, timeless and focused entirely on celebrating the arrival of a new artistic creation. The Ready Player One premiere was, then, a perfect party announcing the arrival of Steven Spielberg’s homage to the cinematic era that spawned his career and which he in turn helped define.
If you’re looking for a comparison to Spielberg’s previous work, Ready Player One is probably close to Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Catch Me If You Can. They (and other of his films) share a sense of wonder, of a director pushing the boundaries of what’s possible to find new ways to surprise us, of an artist giving us experiences unlike anything we’ve seen before. So, too, does Ready Player One.
I won’t spend a lot of time on the whole nostalgia angle, since it’s obvious the movie is stuffed to the gills with 1980s and 1990s pop culture references, including movies and video games from what could perhaps be called the “golden era” of Spielberg’s filmmaking. So there’s plenty of appeal for older viewers who remember those decades, and younger viewers who are obsessed with the retro coolness of such things. It’s eye-popping and mind-blowing to see how many little references, Easter eggs, and other hidden gems populate every scene of Ready Player One. I’m sure people will be discovering previously-unrevealed examples of them for years to come, after the film releases on home entertainment and fans can spend days scanning every single frame.
But you don’t actually need familiarity with those things to appreciate and understand Ready Player One, or to relate to the various characters and their arcs. Think about The Matrix for a moment, and imagine if it was real but everybody had the option to log into it or not whenever they wanted, and we all knew how to bend or break the rules the way Neo and his crew did. We don’t even need a dystopian future setting to make that sound instantly exciting and desirable, right?
Now imagine if you lived in a rundown trailer park, the world was running out of food and water and resources. Escaping into a “Matrix” world where anything is possible, where you can be anyone you want and compete for money and gifts and endless entertainment, becomes all the more enticing.
In our age of mobile devices, augmented reality and virtual reality, streaming services, and rising fears of authoritarianism and climate change and possible nuclear warfare, we don’t need a background in 1980s video games and movies to appreciate why the characters in Ready Player One behave as they do, or to enjoy watching their stories. CONTINUE AT SITE
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