'Ready Player One' promises to be a return to 'fun' Spielberg films

Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of all time -- even many of is detractors will admit this and yet with a few exceptions his films over the last couple decades have been portentous and serious affairs than the escapist fare that made him a household name.

I get it, as he grew older Spielberg yearned for respectability. And he got it. He's now a two-time Best Director Oscar winner, he can make anything he wants with whoever he wants. And yet he works more infrequently now and usually shies away from the blockbuster material.

That's why I am greeting the news that he plans to adapt the exciting and inventive sci-fi novel Ready Player One with tremendous excitement.

I respect and appreciate the director of Lincoln, but I miss the Spielberg who made E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters, and the original Indiana Jones trilogy.

Sure, Spielberg has shown glimmers of his old showmanship, particularly with his wildly underrated, computer animated tour-de-force, The Adventures of Tintin. But Ready Player One promises to be far more ambitious, while at the same time, a delightfully ambitious return to form.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, author Ernest Cline's Ready Player One is a pop culture junkie delight. It's set in a future universe where the entire population is caught up in elaborate treasure hunt devised by a recently deceased mogul. This uber-rich, Willy Wonka type figure was a recluse, with an obsession with 1980s pop culture. He has set up a complicated game which requires exceptional knowledge of the films, music and television of Reagan era. In other words, the more War Games dialogue you know, a better player you are.

It gets far more complicated than that -- there's an unlikely romance and some very elaborate action scenes (that will be very hard to realize on screen realistically) -- but ultimately it's a fun, far-from-pretentious adventure book, more Back to the Future than The Matrix, and I had a ball reading it.

Spielberg, because of his identification with the '80s, is the perfect director to helm this project. He's always shown a great sense of humor and pathos in his best work and he's also always been at the forefront of technology in the film. The key is that he knows how to let special effects serve his story, instead of overwhelm it.

I'd love to see Spielberg wow us again like he did with say, Jurassic Park, with his sheer audacious showmanship. Now that he's proven several times that he can tug on our heartstrings and be a critical darling, I'm ready to see him put all of these pretenders who have tried to assume his mantle to shame.

If you study the so-called film brat generation of the '60s and '70s as I religiously do, you'll find that Spielberg has always had the reputation of being the "safe one" who was afraid to take on the suits. And, as he nears 70, he is about to take on something that would probably prove too daunting for a director half his age.

But I think he's still got a little fire in him as a filmmaker.