Ready Player One has a few inherent problems, but fun isn’t one of them
I read the book before I saw the movie. This actually doesn’t happen very often for movies made outside the SCU (Seuss Cinematic Universe). And it was an awesome experience. I was worried when I saw that it was being made into a movie, but excited when I saw Spielberg attached to it. I mean, he already has access to all his copyrights, right? Actually, I have no idea how copyright law works.
But one big issue with the book is the audience. It’s billed as a YA book, but it is almost necessary to have to be my age to appreciate the references, which is about 80% of it. So is it for just young adults who have read up on the 80s extensively? Or maybe I’m overthinking it since the book was a NY Times best seller and translated onto 20 languages.
The movie didn’t follow the book word for word like some uppity purists think has to happen whenever somebody makes a movie from a book. Nobody says that about Led Zeppelin’s The Battle of Evermore. ANYWAY, this was an excellent adaptation of the book. It cut or changed when it needed to, but stayed mostly true to the source. In fact, the two major changes I saw made it a much better movie. First, the race. That was an awesome way to get you into this world right away and immediately allowed you to indulge your inner 80s geek. Second, the quarter. It may have been a silly bet, but it was a much more efficient way for Parzival to get that quarter that he needed.
The biggest problem, however, which would have been tough to get around without completely changing the course of the movie, is its message. That we should spend more time outside of the game. In real life. Right after the most mind-blowingly immersive 175-million-dollar movie event there has ever been. Yeah right. That’s what you want us to do.
Not to mention the painfully long third act. After all the tension was over and the story was pretty well wrapped up, it kept going. Even the cheesy score had no idea what to do after 10 minutes.
And the password on the post-it note.
And the contest itself.
But like I said, it was a lot of fun of you don’t concern yourself too much with facts or logic.
6.5/10
Dustin Fisher
Dustin Fisher
