Steve Spielberg selects the past for the futuristic Ready Player One. And whilst joysticking down memory lane, we find ourselves leveling up the pitfalls of hammy references with the quirky thrill of a brainy quest; making for a somewhat annoying yet moderately hip trip, like the 80s.

We pick up the story in The Columbus Stacks after the corn syrup droughts have left a bleak outlook for reality and, ergo, the population has spiraled into the virtual realm. The OASIS creator is serial 80s gamer Halliday (Rylance) who, implying that sometimes you want to go where everybody doesn’t know your name, launches a scavenger hunt within the OASIS. The idea of which is quite rad but an oddity develops as we disconnect from the actual real world characters. That is, Watts (Sheridan) and Cook (Cooke) are bland versions of Parzival and Art3mis, respectively, and we want their narrative to shrivel in comparison even though they’re meant to be heroic.

The story gets lost in its own jet wash as Spielberg stuffs a full suitcase but that doesn’t ruin the film. It’s still fairly fun. Ready Player One doesn’t set the Film Clas high score, though, tallying 2.88 napkins out of 5.