If a mosquito bit Steven Spielberg around the time he was making “Jurassic Park,” then became trapped in amber until some nut with more money than forethought extracted the DNA from it and cloned an early ’90s version of Spielberg, well, that’s the guy I could see directing “Ready Player One.”

But for the actual Spielberg, now 71, to be able to tap into his boy-genius mojo after the likes of “Schindler’s List,” “Amistad” and “Munich” to deliver such a rousing technical achievement while incorporating the broken families and outsiders of some of his best-loved works is nothing short of phenomenal.

Based on the novel by Ernest Cline, who co-wrote the script with Zak Penn (“The Incredible Hulk”), “Ready Player One” is centered around young Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan, “X-Men: Apocalypse”). An orphan living with his aunt and her latest loser boyfriend in the Stacks, a series of mobile homes literally stacked like makeshift high-rises in Columbus, Ohio, Wade finds refuge in the virtual universe known as the OASIS.

It’s 2045, years after the corn syrup droughts and the bandwidth riots, and almost everyone, regardless of their income, practically lives inside the OASIS. And why wouldn’t they when they can do literally anything Spielberg and Warner Bros. could obtain the rights to, including climbing Mount Everest with Batman?

Inside the OASIS, Wade is known by his avatar Parzival. In real life, he’s never even met his best friend, whose avatar, Aech, is a massive, beastly mechanic. They’re mostly content to drive in street races for coins and a chance to unlock the first piece of the puzzle that the late OASIS designer James Halliday (Mark Rylance) left as a Willy Wonka-style inheritance. Whoever finds the three keys and the Easter egg hidden somewhere in the OASIS will control the virtual world as well as Halliday’s vast fortune.

It’s been five years since Halliday died, and no one has even cracked the first clue. Warner Bros. could sponsor a similar contest, asking moviegoers to spot all the pop-culture references in “Ready Player One” and it would prove nearly as difficult. (To give you a hint without ruining any of the surprises, the DeLorean from “Back to the Future” and the Iron Giant are on the movie’s poster.)

But after Parzival saves Art3mis (Olivia Cooke, “Bates Motel”), who resembles a sexy, anime porcupine, during a race, he starts to take the contest much more seriously. They’re determined to keep the OASIS in the hands of Gunters (egg hunters) like themselves and Aech and away from the Sixers, debtors who’ve been co-opted into hunting for the egg by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn, “Bloodline”), the nefarious head of Innovative Online Industries.

They’ll also have to survive the bounty hunter known as i-R0k, who shares the voice and, most hilariously, the attitude of T.J. Miller (“Silicon Valley”) and looks like Skeletor ate another Skeletor and then coughed up a RoboCop.

The virtual world of the OASIS looks nearly as magical on screen as it must to the millions of its goggled users. To emphasize the contrast, Spielberg created the OASIS scenes digitally using computer animation and motion-capture technology and shot the real-world moments on film. The effect is like bouncing back and forth between the Technicolor wonderland of Oz and the drab black-and-white Kansas.

“Ready Player One” goes on a bit too long, and several of the non-OASIS scenes tend to drag. Moviegoers who aren’t obsessed with video games or didn’t come of age with Buckaroo Banzai may be left scratching their heads during the onslaught of pop-culture references that come across in various avatars. Many of them stem from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, the era with which Halliday, whom Rylance portrays as Bill Gates by way of an aging Garth Algar from “Wayne’s World,” identifies.

It’s tough to tell whether the Gunters are obsessed with that era because they’re obsessed with Halliday, or if they’re simply immersing themselves in the nostalgia to give them an edge in the contest.

Regardless of their intent, “Ready Player One’s” massive battle scene with trademarks colliding like rarely before, has taken an early lead for biggest geek-out of the year. It’s like “The Lego Movie,” only with more heart — and more joyous thrills, depending on how well you know your movie, music and video game history.

Just like Halliday’s contest, “Ready Player One” is designed to reward the nerdiest among us.

Devastating images of the Halifax Explosion, a cataclysm so great that some victims were blinded simply by looking at it.

“Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode.”

These were the last words of Vince Coleman, the train dispatcher who met his end on December 6, 1917, in the Halifax Explosion. Seconds later, the ship would explode and set off the 3,000 tons of explosives inside. It would be the biggest and most devastating explosion in history until the invention of the nuclear bomb.

The Halifax Explosion started when two ships collided in the harbor of the Nova Scotian capital of Halifax. A Norwegian ship, the SS Imo, had slammed into the SS Mont-Blanc, a French ship filled to the brim with TNT, picric acid, benezole, and guncotton.

The collision cracked open the barrel of benezole, dousing the ship in flammable chemicals. Then the SS Imo’s engine kicked in, setting off a spark that would kill thousands.

All 3,000 tons of explosives then went off at once, burning with a heat of more than 9,000 °F. In seconds, the flames eviscerated every building in a half-mile radius, while a brutal shockwave tore through the rest of the city, traveling more than half a mile per second and shaking the city to its bones.

The inferno tore through Halifax, burning so bright that some were blinded just from looking at the light of the explosion. Others were trapped inside their homes by the roaring fires around them. They had no way to escape from the smoke that slowly choked them and the flames that left nothing but ashes in their wake.

“The sight was awful,” one witness said. “People hanging out of windows dead. Some with their heads missing, and some thrown onto the overhead telegraph wires.”

By the end, the Halifax Explosion had ended 2,000 lives and seriously injured at least 9,000 more.

As horrible as it was, though, it would have been worse if it wasn’t for that one final message from Vince Coleman. He stayed at his post to make sure the train bound for the harbor wouldn’t come in. He gave up his chance for one last mad dash for survival to save the lives of the 300 people on board that train.

“Guess this will be my last message,” Coleman said as he watched the flames burn through the hull of the SS Mont-Blanc. “Good-bye boys.”

Full coverage tonight at 10/9c on IFC TV. Congress has deemed yelling and screaming as the nation’s official mode of communication.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is a superhero film that has been in production for several years, with its controversial cast being announced all the way back in the fall of 2013. Since then, due to the hiring of Chris Terrio to help write the screenplay, the film was pushed back a full year to fully realize the greatness that is America’s two biggest superhero icons duking it out to the death. The film is directed by Zack Snyder (Watchmen, Man of Steel, 300, Sucker Punch), written by Chris Terrio (Argo) and David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Blade), and stars Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman, Gal Gadot was Wonder Woman, Jeremy Irons as Alfred, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, and Holly Hunter play other characters. The story centers on the controversy in Metropolis surrounding the man-god Kryptonian savior Superman in the aftermath of the events of 2013’s Man of Steel, a film that was lambasted for compromising its protagonist’s heroic image with his blind destruction of the vast majority of the city in the name of beating up one dude he didn’t like, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties and probably a couple 9/11’s worth of property damage. This was a problem that Batman v. Superman promised to address, as Bruce Wayne/Batman, resident and vigilante protector of the neighboring and similarly crime-ridden Gotham City, sees the destruction firsthand, and thinks Superman is flaunting a lot of unchecked power and posing as a hero without understanding the consequences of his other-worldly power. The United States government seems to agree with Batman on this one, as a Kentucky senator is trying to propose (incredibly vague) restrictions on Superman’s hero activity. Superman has problems with the Bat as well, criticizing his vigilante justice practices. So, they have a little spat. Add a ton of other shit and you have this movie.

Batman v. Superman is an absolute mess. I want to make that clear from the get-go. Let me first, though, say the things that this movie does well (don’t worry, this won’t take long). First of all, the casting of Ben Affleck, which three years ago seemed to some as a sin against humanity, ends up being the most reliably good thing in this movie. Affleck brings his A-game, as does Irons as his assistant Alfred, who provides all two of the amusing parts of the entire movie. The cinematography has Zack Snyder’s signature touch, in that it’s dark and often very pretty, and yes, there is ample slow-mo. The action sequences are hit or miss (more on that later), but a number of them are fairly well-done, curiously all of them having Batman at their center. Not only is Batman an inherently more interesting and malleable character, but also seems to make for much more compelling action. The actual fight with Superman is suitably tense and pretty exciting, as are the scenes, both real and imagined, of Batman throwing down with armored baddies – even if they are a tad excessive in brutality. The score is also decent, even if the choir sections are pretty ridiculous.

The film, probably thanks to having one-half of its writing team be a pretty good screenwriter (Terrio), does have a story that lends itself to some themes that are interesting on paper, and are what primarily got me excited about the movie in the first place. The idea of essentially an indestructible god being among humankind and how mankind would deal with that is inherently intriguing, as is the theme of what limits should be placed on and what litigation should be allowed in regards to the activities of superhumans (although this idea was much better examined already in The Incredibles). Especially in the first half of the movie, these themes are given some light as we get to know the motivations behind Batman and Superman and try to understand their philosophical squabble. This is where the list of the good things about the movie ends. On to the excrement.

Now, like I just said, this movie’s story, when handled well, lends itself to some inherently very thought provoking themes regarding the relation between gods and men, conflicting ideas of justice, and the political implications of a superhero in the modern world. The first 100 minutes or so of this movie are largely action-free and are almost entirely devoted to setting up these ideas. The remaining 50 minutes are mostly allocated toward brainless, poorly put together action sequences underscored by character decisions that not only completely bury any semblance of cohesion or conclusiveness to the themes harped on so aggressively in the first act, but also actively make these themes make no sense at all.

One of the most intriguing things about BvS’s premise was its seeming legitimizing of the mind-numbing pointless cataclysm at the climax of Man of Steel. It almost covered up for one of that movie’s biggest flaws by making it the starting point for the entire plot, seeing as how Batman sees that destruction as reason enough to try and destroy Superman. Unfortunately, the ethical codes of these characters are completely muddled and nonsensical in the last two-thirds of the movie. Batman suddenly becomes a vicious, remorseless murderer despite his claims for superhero accountability for collateral damage, and Superman (with the help of Batman and the two minutes Wonder Woman pretends to matter on screen) causes and/or facilitates arguably even wider destruction and casualties in his “heroic” efforts, yet these are conveniently glossed over. Lex Luthor had the opportunity to have an interesting motivation regarding his borderline atheism and fear of a godlike creature, but it ends up getting lost in Jesse Eisenberg’s weird, twitchy monologues that end up coming off goofy instead of menacing the majority of the time. When your main villain’s haunting final scene gets laughs from the audience, your villain is not working.

All of these motivations and themes are completely devoid of cohesion, and the film instead elects partway through to pull a complete 180 from a tense, dark, outwardly political (not necessarily good) superhero movie to a loud, obnoxious video game. My mind has become completely numb to almost all computer generated imagery, and yet these superhero movies seem to be having a contest to one-up each other with how many virtual fireworks displays they can shoehorn to the film’s climax. The already pretty muddled and empty attempts at depth made in BvS are made even more shallow and pointless as the third act tries scene by scene to best itself by how much shit it can clutter the frame with. The inky Instagram filter lighting, break-neck editing, and smudgy punk rock color palette turn the majority of the latter half’s action sequences into pure sensory overload, and by the end the action had become so tensionless and numbing to me that I was really just waiting for the credits to start because I’d already basically decided how I felt about the movie.

If the irksomely under-realized thematic material wasn’t enough to drag the already thin plot to its knees, there’s also the fact that Snyder’s self-indulgent slow-motion and inclusion of repeats of pretty imagery we saw before bloat the already insultingly huge running time even further, and the one potentially risky story move toward the end (and also the only thing about the entire movie not shown in the trailer) is completely negated in the sequel-guaranteeing final shot. Oh yeah, we also have some sequels to set up for, which results in a number of incredibly rushed, forced, and groan-inducing flash-forwards to the Justice League that honestly felt really hammy. Remember how Age of Ultron was like the middle-point movie for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and had to kind of move all one thousand of its characters’ stories along by like an inch so they can each have their own movie, and as a result it was kind of a big jumbly mess? Yeah, well the DC Cinematic Universe has already had that movie now and we’re only two movies in, which is not a promising foundation for your dozen-odd-film meta-franchise.

Speaking of the Marvel movies, let’s use them as a means of illustrating what is probably the biggest surface-level problem with this movie – it’s not fun. At the very least, Age of Ultron was quippy, fast-paced, and had some characters we liked. Even if the action grew tiresome, the thought-provoking themes weren’t explored very well, and it was kind of overstuffed and overlong, at the very least I can say it’s a fast, fun movie to sit through. Batman v Superman tries to take a page from the Nolan Batman trilogy and take superhero stories more seriously, but somehow translates that into making the film overly grim, dark, and completely devoid of fun – yes, Batman v Superman makes Christopher Nolan seem subtle by comparison. Besides some small quips by Alfred (which seem super out of place within the rest of the movie), the only fun things are the cool action bits the trailers spoiled for us and unintentionally funny lines by the villain. Especially after seeing a movie like Deadpool, it’s really hard watching a superhero movie that doesn’t just take itself seriously, but is just brooding and dull and dreary. It’s dudes in spandex punching a swamp demon. You’re not directing fucking Hamlet, Zack Snyder. Have some fun with it.

Overall, Batman v Superman raised my expectations in its first act with some clever writing and themes and even some good action sequences, then proceeded to instead deliver exactly what the trailers made me believe beforehand that I would get, and also usurped all fun and advertised future movies in the process, all while completely ditching its potential to be powerful and drowning it in an incoherent, inconclusive 40-minute eyefuck. This movie isn’t complete shit. It’s just a blockbuster that tries to be ambitious, gives up, then tries to go by the numbers, and then gets the numbers wrong. Good thing I’m not a comic book fan so I only see this as a shitty movie and not some kind of act of sacrilege.

On my way out of the theater, I saw a 12-year-old girl walking out next to me that had a Batman shirt on that said, “That was probably the best movie I’ve ever seen.” And that’s a pretty good way to look at it. This movie will probably satiate the hunger of the least demanding of die-hard comic fans, and will probably give Zack Snyder fans a huge boner to add to his trophy room, but if you don’t fit in one of those categories, I don’t think it’s worth the trip to the theater. Just wait for Civil War like I’m doing.

Grade: C-

Samus breaks free from two dimensions and confronts a new villain!