‘Ready Player One’ Trailer: The Plot-Heavy Trailer Takes On ’80s Nostalgia

Ready Player One opened to (mostly) rapturous reception at SXSW this week. Which means we’re due for another trailer filled with gushing quotes and high praise of the Steven Spielberg ’80s nostalgia vehicle.

And Warner Bros. has lived up to expectations, releasing the first post-SXSW trailer for Ready Player One ahead of its late March release.

Ready Player One Trailer

Finally, a trailer where Ready Player One doesn’t feel like “Nostalgia: The Movie.”

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of expected  ’80s nods to King Kong, Back to the Future, and dinosaurs — all set to the catchy, quintessential pop tune “Take One Me” by A-ha. But the latest Ready Player One trailer is also surprisingly heavy on plot. The “Dreamer” Ready Player One trailer plays like a traditional trailer for a sci-fi tentpole film, introducing us to our intrepid protagonist Wade Wyatts (Tyler Sheridan), an impoverished teen seeking to unravel the mystery of the brilliant deceased inventor, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), and find his hidden fortune.

This feels like the first trailer that has focused on the exciting plot and intimate character drama between Wade and Artemis (Olivia Cooke). And then there’s the Oasis. This is the first trailer where I’ve truly felt the awe that the Oasis is meant to inspire, as the camera swoops and dives over rolling landscapes and bustling cities. There’s that Spielberg magic that everyone is talking about.

/Film reviewer Joi Childs praised Spielberg’s wielding of familiar ’80s iconography in her review, but says that even a master director like him has trouble juggling the nostalgia inherent in the source material by Ernest Cline. “Nostalgia drips on every corner of this movie to varying success,” she writes. “In some cases, it’s a piece of dialogue, a throwaway line. In other cases, it’s an entire action scene centered around a cult classic film that literally recreates iconic beats. The intentions are well meaning, but the script is just basic enough to cause these references to often feel like a shallow plucking on nostalgic heart strings.”

Here is the official synopsis for Ready Player One:

The film is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger.

Ready Player One is set to hit theaters on March 29, 2018.

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