One of the chief issues with Ready Player One is its failure to show not tell. The first act leans heavily on voiceover narration to deliver mounds of exposition, but some of the information received through the VO was already pretty apparent on screen. The narration in the opening act is the only thing pulling the plot along until we get to the first hidden key challenge in the OASIS, and its use at the end of the film to directly deliver the film's main objective and thesis, which is an urge to live more presently in reality as opposed to behind a screen, and perhaps to not revel so much in nostalgia (which is a little ironic). In the film's defense, the first third of the book (which I've yet to read) is apparently just first-person world building and set up; however, opting for narration is by far the easiest option, and the information presented in the VO could've easily been delivered by other, more subtler means. Of course, Ready Player One is a blockbuster, and those film's commonly dull the narrative to ensure the popcorn-eating masses get the point.

As far as the references go, none of them felt forced or out of place. The scenes weren't built around pop culture references, they're just there, and if you see them, great; if you don't get the reference, you're not excluded at all. The nostalgic elements littered throughout the film are merely Easter Eggs (which is probably why the studio locked in an Easter weekend release date), and they may make your nerdy heart swell, but they're not crucial to understanding what's going on in the story. In at least one instance, the pop culture reference is paramount to the story, and takes you back into one of Kubrick's classic films for a 10-15 minute scene that I can only describe as pure nostalgic bliss. Spielberg is one of the few directors I would trust to recreate one of Kubrick's films, and he attacks it with thrilling bravado.