Within the first minute of Aardman’s latest feature, there
is a shot featuring a shop named Milliway’s. Thirty seconds after that, a sign
for H.G. Wheel’s Auto. This sets the pace for the 87 minutes to follow, as the
studio’s usual penchant for visual gags, both foreground and background, takes
on a rather niche dimension, filling pretty much every moment with some form of
tribute or reference to the older sci-fi canon. This seriously makes Ready
Player One look like amateur hour for films designed to make film nerds look
through every frame with a fine-toothed comb, and it certainly got me more
attentive than usual to spot as many as I could.
