I thought the movie really underdeveloped the world, and didn't take advantage of all of the cool possibilities. Other than [spoiler] The Shining [/spoiler] none of the references had any impact. Mark Rylance was the only actor to make an impression. I didn't even like the narrative of the book that much but I thought Stephen Spielberg would improve it not make it worse. The plot holes were huge especially in the third act ([spoiler] How did Art3mis just walk into his office, walk out without anyone seeing or hearing her, and just walk out of the IOI headquarters [/spoiler]). It felt like a lot was cut for time, or they spent so much time on CGI sequences they forgot to make anything real, but what they cut were the parts that made the book interesting. You could ignore Ernest Cline's narrative and plot struggles because he made the characters slightly interesting, the challenge seemed difficult and all encompassing, and a lot of the references were actually relevant to the story. Every time they got a key it was a huge deal in the book, here I totally forgot it even mattered because it was so glossed over even from the beginning ([spoiler] Really a race? [/spoiler]) and the real world consequences also didn't matter, so the whole thing felt like it was hitting the classic sentimental Spielberg movie moments with nothing to back it up.

I could feel a sweet taste in my mouth coming out from the cinema after Ready Player One knowing I’d be coming straight back here, my very own “Oasis”, to write this very review about a movie that I hope will be a landmark for all the other people, who like me live in a world where “pop culture” isn’t just a part of history, but it’s a part of real life… or simply IS real life.

Ready Player One isn’t a movie for everyone. It’s a gem that is only to be understood by the people who it is made for. A hymn bellowing aloud to every single person who struggles in life.

The misunderstood, the shunned… people who don’t know what place they have on this earth, people who don’t know how to start living, people who hide and those who create an invisible shell around themselves separating them from everyone else… people like me… the internet people.

Those of us that live in a world where comic books aren’t just “books with figures for kids”, where videogames aren’t just brainwashing violence, where movies matter and they have to be talked about, where the line between fantasy and what is real and tangible is so thin, that it enables us to expand our minds and so deeply changing every single one of us: the way we talk, the way we look, the way we think, how we interact, how we live!

Those are the people Ready Player One was made for. Me and you reading this.
This is for US.

I feel sorry for those who cannot possibly feel the relevance this movie has. Who did not understand any of the references, the little things this movie was brought up upon, the lingo the characters use, the way they are portraited the way in which it takes them a blink of an eye to feel like family, to trust one another completely and depend on each other, the need they have to feel included and not eclipsed by society.

There is only sadness in that, at least for me writing this, I could not live a life without this, it would be colorless.

Ready Player One is an amalgamation of pop culture concentrated in 2 hours and 20 minutes in the form of a videogame where everything your imagination wants is right in front of you.

The characters will fight against an “EvilCorp” to take control of “Oasis” the virtual reality that is the pinnacle of society’s future by racing to find the ultimate “Easter egg” and ensure the community is safe from exploitation by greedy goblins that do not want you to install “AdBlock” as a mod.

The movie struggles to have a very clear line between real and virtual because of the consistent switches between CGI and “regular” film, this up until the very end where it finds balance and leaves the viewer, who understands what is going on, with a message that to me is most important in all that happens: take a break from the internet.

I shouldn’t need to say this – but render unto Caesar the quality of CGI is out the roof, everything is super-detailed and the animations are PHENOMENAL, which is on-par with the few real-life choreographies that are featured in some of the switches between real and virtual that I mentioned earlier. The colors are so vivid and perfectly placed some of the scenes are dreamy and give a sense of everlasting life to what is happening which further thins the line between you – the viewer and it – the picture.

Steven Spielberg is a master at giving life to what could very well look bland and lifeless and for that, I shall thank him till the day I die.
It’s always a pleasure to see Easter eggs and references inside movies, like we’re used to with the MCU, but I daresay this one is an entire different level.

Let me explain to you why: Everything you see, from the WIRED magazine, to the “Twitch” streaming mention, to the DeLorean to the Iron Giant, Tracer, Halo, Gears of War and also all the Back to the Future tingling sounds that warm my heart, these aren’t just references or Easter eggs, and this is why this movie it SO GOOD, they ARE the movie!

It’s just a facet of our life that is there to remind ourselves that, however sci-fi the movie might look like, if you think deep enough it’s actually a mirror of everyday life (if you’re a nerd, like me).

The story itself isn’t too shallow or a Denis Villeneuve mindfuck, it’s a simple low and high climax with a big reveal and a moral story, so it’s a textbook good story… but it is the way it was shaped to enclose everything that just fucking shoots at your brain so seamlessly that makes it even better.

Besides my personal opinion, I think the cast overall was just spot on. I don’t think I can contribute objectively on this subject, for this particular work.

I rarely enjoy Ben Mendelsohn, especially as a bad guy.

What I can say is that I loved the perpetuating and profusing synergy between Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke. I LOVED how bad-ass Lena Waithe looked OOC and how massive her character looked in-game which also showed some soft spots which gave it more depth.

Win Morisaki did one thing near the end of the movie that I won’t spoil but I screamed the name of that thing in the room and everybody was both pissed and annoyed by me (Don’t regret it)

In general, I just loved the crew altogether, bit of a weak villain but honestly, it’s not that bad, it’s really hard giving dignity to someone who you know is going to lose anyway, unless you are Andrew Kevin Walker and like fucking up everyone’s mind.

To end this review I would like to say I almost cried in 10 scenes purely by nerd-gasm, I definitely cried when Win Morisaki did that thing that I cannot speak of without spoiling, with the big purple sword and that bang-bang-bang-bang and those tin-tin-tin from Back to the Future and also all the brum-brum-brum, also cried on the dance swooshy-swoosh scene where they – and so I kept crying and I had to hold my breath when she did that thing with the bike that they mentioned and that was my big “whoa” and then the movie ended and they said that thing and I was like “fuck that I don’t take days off I gotta learn RS6 Siege”.

Peace.

You can find my reviews on real life @WiseMMO on Twitter.

For the most part, I liked Ready Player One. The film is entertaining and imaginative, but it never seems to reach the potential that it has. It feels like it squanders some good material in a quest to be a parable about the dangers of virtual reality.

I finished reading the book a few days before the film's release (today) and I have the book's story fresh in my mind to compare with the film.

The film, co-written by the book's author Ernest Cline only has the very basics from the book. There were some deep structural changes made the the film's story and characters some for the better and some for the worse.

The changes to the way the keys were found and used, that was a good change. The book's version was dull and drawn out, the film's version is more dynamic, quicker to the point and in general more exciting -- a good example is the first key[spoiler], in the book it was a dungeon quest that ends with Parzival playing an arcade game. In the movie, it is a race that is visually stunning[/spoiler]. The research and Halliday journal are compressed into a museum of sorts and that helps a lot.

One of the changes that was for the worse was the way the characters met. [spoiler]Having Parzival meet Art3mis so early and having Art3mis be the one that initiates the meeting was a bad choice. The chemistry between the two never really works onscreen and the "love" that they feel for each other feels forced and too quick. Aech, who has a larger part and backstory in the book, is reduced to basically a driver. The Japanese kid who dies in the book lives in the movie, which takes away from the evilness of Sorento. Also, having the kids be together in the real world and working together is a bad change as it takes away from the competition[/spoiler]. I can see why Spielberg would want this change to happen -- it follows in the same footsteps as his other films that feature kids as the protagonists.

Speaking of Spielberg, the man has two sides. There is Serious Spielberg (The Post) and there is Fun Spielberg (Ready Player One). Lately, Fun Spielberg hasn't had much fun -- his last few "fun" films being The BFG, The Adventures of Tintin and that Indiana Jones film everyone chooses not to remember. Gone are the days of Jurassic Park or Raiders of the Lost Ark "Fun" Spielberg. It almost seems like Spielberg is trying too hard with Ready Player One to try to recapture the magic of "Fun" Spielberg. For the most part, he does.

The score by Alan Silvestri is perfect for the film as he remixes some of his best themes into the film that has... well, some of the movies that he scored for.

The leads were decent. Olivia Cooke stands out in the film and is most memorable. Ben Mendelson is also memorable with his mix of the sneering Krennic with a little bit of cowardly goofball -- it sounds weird, but it works. T.J. Miller's I-R0k is a character that was not in the book, but added to the movie -- and I really liked this addition. I-R0k was very memorable and hilarious.

The movie banks on nostalgia and shoves quite a bit of it visually in every frame. It will take multiple viewings to catch everything that Spielberg and team put into the film.

An absolute nerdfest, especially for those of us who were teens in the 80's. The pop culture references come thick and fast in a film that threatens (though never does) to overload the senses. There are loads of articles and videos online going into depth, with checklists of 'every' Easter Egg in the film (am sure they missed a few, as did I), but many have overlooked the biggest cultural reference of them all. By this, I mean Spielberg himself. Here, he returns to his childlike sense of wonder and glee that has been missing from many of his films over this last few years. Yes, Bridge of Spies was great, and I enjoyed War Horse, but I missed the Spielberg of ET, Close Encounters, and the original Indiana Jones movie trilogy. Yet here he is, blasting us with pure nostalgia with filmmaking that only he is truly capable of, and it's that, in amongst every other reference in the film (one scene towards the middle will blow your mind) that made me truly enjoy this film.

Sadly, of course, there are critics who have come down hard on the film. Yet the film isn't made for them. If it had been packed with references to Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman, with 3D subtitles and film noir subtexts, they would have been in seventh heaven. Unfortunately, many of them don't know one end of a joypad from another, and the only type of Spielberg film in their blu-ray collections are Lincoln (yawn) and Schindler's List. THIS IS A FILM FOR EVERYBODY ELSE, those who enjoy childlike escapism, who played Dungeons and Dragons, and who still miss the much lamented sci-fi series Firefly. Ready Player One isn't a perfect film, there are times when it drags, but give it a chance (**overlook** it's occasional shortcoming) and enjoy it for the pure escapist fare it is. And don't forget the message at the end of the film.

It's doubtful there will be a sequel, but if Ernest Cline ever wants to write Ready Player Two, I hope Spielberg gets to make the movie. Game on!

Wait, I didn't review this yet? How did I forget?

What we have here is honest Nostalgia Candy, not the forced rebranding rebooting and reimaging that we are seeing in Hollywood today. It doesn't rely on a familiar brand to sell tickets to a movie that has nothing to do with the brand and really, ultimately trashes it.

Rather, it relies on nostalgia to tell a fun, dynamic, and entertaining story that features all the glorious creations that we loved back when, well, back when Hollywood was still making glorious creations.

And, because of that, you walk away totally satisfied.