‘Ready Player One’ Film Review: Spielberg’s Weaponized Nostalgia Is an Exercise in Overkill
Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” might mark the beginning of a new era in filmmaking or the end of an old one, but either way it feels like a failed experiment in building a new story on the carcasses of old movies, TV shows and video games.
Granted, I’m also not sure if this movie is aimed squarely at me or if I’m the last person who should see it: the screenplay by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline (based on Cline’s novel) seems to be weaponizing my own personal nostalgia for John Hughes, Monty Python, “Buckaroo Banzai” and other objects of obsession from my late teens and early 20s.