Steven Spielberg Returns To Pure Pop Escapism In Nostalgic ‘Ready Player One’ [Review]

“Ready Player One,” Steven Spielberg’s dizzying foray into ’80s pop culture fandom, is a return of sorts to the pure pop escapism that pervaded his filmography in the late ’70s and early ’80s, with such films as “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T.” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The sheer playful joy in filmmaking displayed by Spielberg in this sci-fi riff has not been seen from the 71-year-old filmmaker since the cat and mouse hijinks of 2002’s “Catch Me If You Can.”Tackling Ernest Cline‘s nerdgastic 2011 novel of the same name, Spielberg sets his meta-y sights on a dystopian feature brimming with Easter Eggs, virtual reality, and an endless layer of discoveries which pay tribute to ’80s pop culture nostalgia, the latter of which Spielberg clearly left an indelible mark on.

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