Ready Player One: comienza el juego

This movie surprised me. Wasn't expecting much other than the animation. For those who compare it to the book, it's a movie. If you are disappointed stick to reading. From start to finish the story was entertaining and kept you engaged. If you want to see something different with your family I highly recommend. Bring out the popcorn.

Pretty good movie visually and even though the changes from the book are obvious but they don't spoil it. They are changes that have to be made so it translates well on to screen.

The comedy in the film is charming and not over the top. It fits in well with the film.

The visuals are awesome. There are so many Easter eggs and references from pop culture it's unbelievable that they managed to add so many. It'll take a long time to spot them all.

Overall I'd say this film is definitely worth a watch.

Ernest Cline's fast-moving novel was a treasure trove for pop-culture junkies, but the endless references work better on the screen.

The year is 2045; the place is Columbus, Ohio. Our hero, Wade Watts, fills in the details while climbing past his grungy homes of his town, "the stacks," where trailer parks are piled on top of each other sky-high. Things are so miserable in Wade's world, everyone escapes to play in an immersive virtual reality game known as the Oasis. Its founder, James Halliday is worshipped like a god until his death some years before. However, before he left the mortal world, the creator left behind a series of games that would reward the winner with the prize of the keys to his virtual kingdom.

The book was a fast paced adventure that took its time to geek out on all of the 80's pop culture references but the film doesn't do that. . Spielberg doesn't have Wade (the titular character) talk audiences through it, and he doesn't spell out the references, he just quickly stamps down the Delorean in the middle of a action sequence and then continues onward. Fans can pause it frame by frame and analyse it thoroughly looking for the flux capacitor on the dashboard, checking the plates, and scanning for extra bonus material. Even to people who've never seen the Back to the Future movies and aren't vibing on the connection, the car doesn't need explaining. It's just a sleek piece of visual energy, one breathless element among dozens of others. That's why the movie works better than the books in terms of visual style and nostalgia.

The thin plot and the not so well done shallow characters make the film to be just a pop culture reference filled visual treat. Several plot holes( If movement is required to move an avatar in the game, how do people play in the Oasis while standing in their living rooms?) and a non-existent character arc makes it a fun, but a tangible watch. They're all already heroes, the big bad is evil from start to finish.

The story's breakneck speed, it's never ending references, make it a fun, exciting watch.

Spielberg remains to this day one of the most misunderstood film-makers of his generation. He has been labeled both a peddler of popcorn and a saccharine manipulator (Those who say the latter have clearly forgotten Alex Kitner erupting in a geyser of blood in Jaws, exploding Nazi heads, the horrors of the Holocaust in Schindler and the river of corpses in War of the Worlds).

There are two Spielbergs. There's the man who makes somber, academy award winning dramas (Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, War Horse, Lincoln etc). Then's there's the 10 year old playing in the sand box (The Indy films, Hook, Jurassic Park, Tintin etc). What I enjoy most about the 'Berg, is how he can zigzag between disparate genres. But after a stretch of SF films (A.I, Minority Report and War of the Worlds), I was looking forward to a return to the free wheeling fun with Crystal Skull. It turned out to be an uncharacteristic dud that despite the boffo box office, proved to be deeply unpopular with fans of the series.

This made me cautious about Ready Player One. Had Spielberg lost his touch? I was wrong. This may be one of the most visually amazing and effortlessly fun films I've seen in a long time. I have not read Ernest Cline's novel, so fans of the popular novel may have issues, but I rarely read the books before seeing the film.

The cast are great. Tye Sheridan are Olivia Cooke are the standouts. Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg are fun in supporting roles. Alan Silvestri's robust score is one of his most memorable. I miss John Williams, but it's still a great score. Longtime 'Berg collaborator Janusz Kaminski's cinematography is beautiful. And it's the only film where you'll see a DeLorean chasing a T-Rex on the big screen. That image alone is worth the ticket price. He never went away, but it's nice to see him back playing in the sand box.

I honestly didn't think that Spielberg had another crowd-pleasing actioner left in him. For the last decade or so his focus has been on more realistic period dramas and character pieces. His attempts at grand action spectacle (the underrated Tintin aside) were underwhelming. But who knew he had this left in him?

This film is an absolute blast. It seamlessly combines reality and animation into one big, exciting adventure. I'm still not completely sure how it pulled it off. I was absolutely amazed at how seamlessly the film merged animation with reality (I'd say only perhaps 1/3 of the film takes place in the "real" world) and gave the obviously digital environments emotional and kinetic weight. That's a very hard balance to pull off and this movie doesn't even raise a sweat. In fact, some of the best scenes revolve around the absurd mix of online and real existence. Pretty much every scene in Sorrento's soulless corporate HQ is a riot because of the seriousness with which they take their involvement in this silly online world, made even more ridiculous by the motions they all make in their VR suits as they react to unseen perils like well-dressed mimes.

I have no doubt that this film will receive a lot of flak for its reliance on pop culture artifacts. And there's some truth to the criticism. The best scene in the movie is when one of the characters waits in an almost meditative trance during the fight scene until he cries out "form of a gundam" in Japanese and awesomeness ensues. Would this scene work as well if it hadn't been a recognizable brand? No question it wouldn't. And that goes for an infinite array of references, from the Iron Giant to the Delorean to an absolutely perfect Overlook Hotel to Chucky ("Oh God, it's f*%@ing Chucky" has got to be the second greatest line in the movie).

But to say that this is nothing but leaching off others' success is unfair. The references are there for a reason. This is a Geek movie, and for geeks this sort of referencing is how they approach the universe. It'd seem odd if there were no open pop culture references in a free-for-all online world. More to the point, the film has a lot to say about online culture and the isolating effect it has on people. The film isn't all pretty colors and film references, it deals with issues like how real the connections we form online actually are, the ever-decreasing distance between fantasy and reality, the importance of community involvement, and all sorts of identity issues that arise when we can hide behind avatars. Not that I'd call the film overly deep or anything, but it's certainly more than just a collection of pop culture references thrown together with minimal plot.

The characters are all good fun. Parzival and his mate Aech are just like a lot of friends I know online, although Parzival's shallowness gives him a good obstacle to overcome. Art3mis is a bit more driven and has goals that take her further than just being the best at a video game. Parzival has a major cyber-crush on her, which is something of a problem. Daito and Shoto are somewhat more distant online rivals. All of them have great moments, but most come after their true selves get revealed around 2/3 of the way through the film. Some of them are very surprising (don't look at the cast list) and they are all funny together. Krennic's director Sorrento is a great villain. He's so full of himself and contemptuous that his appearance in-game as a muscular brute in a business suit dealing with mystical things he cares nothing about is a blast. And when he's cornered he can be hilariously practical. His online minion i-R0k is also priceless, the sort of super badass dude living in his mom's basement that you can only find in video games. Mark Rylance steals every scene he's in as the vaguely Wozniakian creator of the game. He's a rather sad figure, one who could never handle reality with such aplomb as he does the world he designed. I was surprsed to see Simon Pegg as his co-founder, a somewhat wasted role but nicel different from his more usual fare.

And I really really didn't think Spielberg could pull this off. It's hard to write a love letter to your favorite films when you're the creator rather than consumer. I'd have been more comfortable with some younger director who grew up on these films. I mean, his works aside I can't recall Spielberg ever displaying much interest in video games or Japanese pop culture (post-Kurosawa at least). Yet this film depends on its immense love of such elements. Perhaps a lot of it comes from the screenplay by the novel's author and Kal Penn, two people eminently qualified to pull this off. But it could never have succeeded without the passion of the maestro himself, and succeed it does. I went in with low expectations and had an absolute blast. But more importantly: I understood that reference.