Nostalgia and cultural allusion is not a bad thing in itself. Many novels and books in fact pull references to other sources -- mythology, religion, cultural practice, other older literary and cinematic works. It mostly seems to be a matter of time. Pop culture are references to recent cultural artifacts, but when enough time passes, if it remains in the public lexicon of discourse, it would be fair game for allusion much as Shakespeare is today.
The issue MORE is about how the new work uses the reference, and here is where "Ready Player One" is a mixed bag of tricks. There are times when the film does make a reference that actually defines their purpose in the story to knowledgeable viewers... like the avatar names of Percival -- the pure knight of Arthurian legend who originally sought the Holy Grail -- or Artemis, the female warrior hunter from Greek mythology. Or the setting of the second quest, which reflects on the nature of the quest itself. Or the ending of the old game involved in the third quest, which actually exists and means what the movie is expressing it to mean. These are the best moments of "Ready Player One" ... where the cultural references are not random or just for the "awww" or "awe" factors but actually inform the viewership of something underlying the story. Like with good architecture, form and purpose meet.
Unfortunately, while sometimes it's enjoyable, many references just seem to be sentimental trigger points rather than relevant to the story. As much as I loved seeing the DeLorean again, it pretty much serves no important role in the story based on our knowledge of the specific workings of the car in its own movie(s) -- it's a visual touchstone without actual substance, where this film wants to swipe our affection for the car as some kind of investment in its own plot. Or the Iron Giant ... Damn. As much as I loved seeing the giant (and it pulled at my heartstrings), I was also kind of dumbfounded by how the Giant is used (against the whole purpose of what we learned about it in the Iron Giant film) until perhaps the very end of its presence in the film here -- this was another case where the appearance of the Giant but not its substance was appropriated by this film to make a quick emotional connection.
(To be honest, this is also a real grip about pop cultural pastiche in general... it often swipes form and appearance but says nothing relevant on its own, like it is just a shadow of a memory. "Ready Player One" suffers under this onus; sometimes the connections are relevant, sometimes they are superficial.)
Another oddity is that the film very much is directed at young teens, while all the emotional nostalgic content necessarily is directed at older adults. Who is the audience exactly? I guess kids will be wowed by the in-game stuff without needing to pick up on bulk of culture allusions, but how many 13-year-olds are well-acquainted with The Shining, or Atari's Pitfall? You have to be an older adult with a knowledge of games, toys, mythology, television, movies, and other shared cultural influences from decades past to recognize much of what is in the film, but much of the film's messaging seems to be a PSA geared towards young teens who don't understand the dangers of the Internet ("No one is who they seem! Never tell anyone your real identity! Don't spend all your time online, real life is where you actually exist!") versus a broader story, although older viewers might pick up on the pervasive sense of regret and missed opportunities motivating Willy Wonk -- I mean, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the OASIS creator, who gatekeeps the selection of an heir for his life's work. Or what sounded almost like director Spielberg himself talking, after a career of making so many films that have resonated with audiences: "Thanks for [watching]."
Still, what's odd is how the movie undermines its own messaging here. Pretty much everyone is exactly who they seem to be in the OASIS (aside from a small irrelevant tweak), finding each other IRL actually is the key to winning the challenge, and very little in the movie that doesn't revolve around the OASIS in some way is that interesting or achieves that much. And when you step back, you recognize that pretty much all the people living in unhappy squalor at the beginning of the film, if they didn't win the half billion in stock, don't really have their real lives improved at the end, aside from no longer being enslaved to pay off debt incurred to IOI, I guess. Still, this is the rosy ending that the last minutes of Tron: Legacy seems to have missed celebrating in greater detail, where players triumph over crabby corporate enterprisers. ("We love you Art3mis!!!")
I know I have complained substantially here for a film I ultimately gave a Like to. "Ready Player One" isn't a bad movie per se, it's just that the trailers (IMO) evoke more emotion than the film itself. There are some YA films (like Hunger Games, with its exploration of class warfare and the role of entertainment in culture) that generate thought carrying beyond the films, while Ready Player One is mainly just entertainment. The script is functional to move the film along but surprisingly not necessarily deep.
It would have even been interesting to at least touch on issues related to MMOs (like griefing, doxxing, sexism and racism -- there's a dark underbelly to online gaming that we never really see hinted at in the film). Also, having a cast that looks unconventional outside the game might have been pretty fascinating too. Think about how the role of the OASIS for those experiencing gender dysphoria, or people with physical handicaps, or for some other reason are able to feel liberation within the game. [As a side note, there's a really great character in Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series, James Michael Finnegan, who has muscular dystrophy IRL, setting up a really complex interplay when the protagonists enter their gaming world as their characters. Yes, maybe the real world IS real... but maybe some people have substantial reasons for wanting to spend their time within what some might call a fantasy.] The film again is happier to just focus on the basic plot of chasing down the Easter Egg and thwarting Ben Mendelsson's corporate baddie... with whom the film seems unwilling to double down as a truly bad person, in the end?
Oh, I did have my share of geek-out moments. For example, I have never read the book, so until looking at the book synopsis while writing this review, I wasn't even aware that D&D's "Tomb of Horrors" plays a role in it -- but boy, during the film did I get a HUGE kick out of unexpectedly seeing that image on the back of the High Five's roving van, knowing exactly where it came from. This film is peppered with Easter Eggs, there's no doubt, and it is definitely a pleasurable jolt to feel like you are privy to something that few others might recognize. It's the same jolt you might get when finding a secluded area in World of Warcraft that most players never find, or running across a hidden room in Wolfenstein 3D, or recognizing a voice of an understated actor from an animated movie. That kind of thing is fun, it's a definite "A ha!" experience.
I guess this whole review could be tl;dr'ed pretty succinctly, in the end: "Ready Player One" is a mostly fun film that can be enjoyed for what it appears to be, it just doesn't extend very far past its two-hour run time nor linger in ways that similar films (like "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory") have resonated in their viewer past for decades past their release, making those films part of the pop culture lexicon. "Ready Player One", assembled as it is from pieces of other works, doesn't have anything of its own to offer unfortunately.
