Ready Player One trailer is a dreary pop culture smorgasbord set to Pure Imagination

The latest trailer for Steven Spielberg's upcoming blockbuster adaptation Ready Player One offers a new look at the upcoming pop culture buffet based on Ernest Cline's hit book of the same name.

As a somber cover of Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory plays, we see footage from inside the Oasis - a virtual reality world where the people of a ruined, near future Earth find their thrills.

Inside players have the chance to be whoever and summon whatever they want, which translates into the host of pop culture references the film's appeal hinges on.

To date we've seen that Ready Player One will include: Street Fighter's Chun-Li, Overwatch's Tracer, the Iron Giant, the Battletoads, Back to the Future's DeLorean, King Kong, the T-Rex from Jurassic Park and many more.

There's also a Gundam robot, Chucky, Joker and Harley Quinn, Lara Croft, the Batmobile and a squad of Master Chiefs from Halo.

If your idea of imagination is any combination of those fighting or chasing each other in a world drained of colour, Ready Player One is the film for you.

For my problems with the film however, it still has in Steven Spielberg, a director who could cut through the bombardment of shallow references to find a story with heart that's worth telling.

Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Lena Waithe, Hannah John-Kamen, Letitia Wright, Ben Mendelsohn, Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance. The film is set to be released on 29 March, 2018.

An official synopsis is below.