Press start and don't think about ‘Ready Player One’ too much

Did you know that Steven Spielberg has been thanked more than God by Academy Award winners in their acceptance speeches?

This truly makes it difficult to say anything bad about him, even if you think "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" should be erased from everyone's memories. Try not to think about "Indiana Jones 5" yet.

He's the "visionary director"  behind "Jurassic Park" and "Jaws" among many other film favorites. But he's also the executive producer of the "Transformers" film franchise and if you consolidate those two things — voila — you get "Ready Player One."

It opens with a quick exposition and that's about it for world-building. The succeeding scenes are a mix of spot the reference and pew, pew, pew. It sounds bad if you put it that way, but sometimes that's just the kind of film you need.

There are plenty of blink and you'll miss it references. Tip: Lara Croft is in an earlier scene, with cars.

The villain is cartoonish and the hero is reluctant, classic set up.

The girl motivates the hero to be better, another woman serves as a reality trigger for him and turns him brave, the minority characters support hims with eagerness. There is nothing at stake, because the villain has his password written out on paper stuck on a chair.

This is a movie about being good in a virtual world. Clearly, the guy who can't remember his password will not do anything clever.

What you have then is a film where you can simply enjoy the wild ride. Should you choose to watch this in IMAX, you'll find yourself in a thrilling race sequence. There's a lot of carnage involved, plus a giant gorilla. It's kind of stressful, but also kind of fun.

And that sums up the movie, actually: Fun.

At times a little cheesy, "Ready Player One" is an upbeat, visually spectacular adventure about this geek using his geek knowledge to defeat the guy who just wants to use geekdom to make money.

Be careful of those people. — GMA News

"Ready Player One" opens in Philippine theaters on March 31.