The year is 2045. The physical place is Columbus, Ohio, shabby home to teen Wade and evil megacorporation IOI. The virtual place, where the camera goes more than half the time, is a network of simulated worlds called the OASIS. Five years ago, the main creator of the OASIS died and left a message that his unprecedented filthy riches would go to whoever found the Easter egg. Most of the searchers outside of IOI have given up, but not Wade and his online buddies. His luck starts to change when he virtually meets and crushes on the legendary "Art3mis," who drops helpful hints. It's not immediately known what game she's playing; she claims to give the highest priority to depriving IOI President Sorrento of the grand prize, but main Wade companion Aech thinks she (or he) is just using Wade to a less noble end.
As usual for these stories, the stakes are higher than the VR setting would suggest. Wade merely wants to get rich enough to leave the slums (and probably his not-so-loving aunt and her lousy boyfriend), but Art3mis insists that letting IOI become the biggest business in the world would be terrible. It somehow manages to practice indentured servitude too broadly to keep a secret, and it can easily arrange real-life murders by drone and whatnot. Sorrento will stop at nothing to win.
For all the negatives of this future, I hesitated to apply the "dystopia" tag. What can I say? The OASIS looks like a blast, and even poor people own the VR equipment to access it. Of course, not so long ago, I might have envied a future in which smartphones are everywhere. Mustn't lose sight of the reasons for widespread escapism, including "the Bandwidth Wars" within a decade from now. And the enrichment of our lives thereby is debatable. I like to think I wouldn't be the kind of guy who spends lots of real money on his avatar and turns suicidal upon getting "killed" and having to start over, but I do little enough in RL as it is.
If all this gamer talk daunts you, rest assured that you don't have to know much about the medium. In fact, the one thing I suggest you check out first is the 1980 adaptation of The Shining, subject of an extended scene herein. There are quite a few other movie references herein (none to Spielberg's), along with a soundtrack reminiscent of the Awesome Mix tapes from Guardians of the Galaxy. I'd heard it was banking on perpetual '80s nostalgia, but a fair amount of the pop culture is from the decade or two before or after—anything that the departed creator would've liked from his earlier life.
Nerdy? Yup. Brainy? Nnnnope. You can tell the PG-13 flick is directed at teens first and foremost. As such, it doesn't have to try as hard as usual to capture a sense of reality. I had a hard time buying, for example, that a handful of teens would figure out a secret that had been escaping the rest of humanity for years. Or that a big boss like Sorrento would make such amateur mistakes. Or, heck, his naked villainy. Also, one of the few complaints about Spielberg that I can agree with is that he doesn't work so well with crowds.
I am not surprised to learn that the first writer listed, Zak Penn, is known primarily for writing Marvel movies. RPO feels a lot like a typical Marvel movie, only, well, more juvenile. Still enough fun not to feel like 160 minutes. Thus, I would recommend it to my dad only at a time when he's not tired of superheroes.
If you are interested, the remaining question is whether to see it in a theater or wait to see it at home. Obviously, there's a lot of spectacle to splash across a big screen, but you might prefer to pause in order to appreciate the many Easter eggs other than the big one of the plot.
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