Ready Player One

[kevinknapman]

Had a lot of fun with Ready Player One this morning.

Spielberg along with screenwriters Zac Penn and the original book's author Ernest Cline do a decent job of bringing it's 80's reference-crammed plot to the big screen in a way that's enjoyably thrilling rather than tiresomely knowing.
While the pop culture nods range from being presented up front and centre to 'blink and you'll miss them' easter eggs and it's often spotting the latter that is the most satisfying.

A solid cast and busy but impressive special effects add to the fun even if things get a touch corny towards the end.
Hardcore fans of the books may balk at the changes that have been made (significantly regarding the trials that make up the quest aspect of the plot) but seeing what they choose instead is just as entertaining.

It may lack depth perhaps but this is superior blockbuster entertainment.

[jpegga]

Did NOT see it at Kingston. We waited 50 minutes on our feet just to be told at 10:30 that the film was not ready/there. We were offered Game Night instead (which we took, since we wanted to see it anyway) or complimentary tickets. It could have been handled better. Surely the cinema knew about the screening days in advance, they could have checked it was OK the day before, rather than leaving it till the last minute.

[raj101]

Did NOT see it at Kingston. We waited 50 minutes on our feet just to be told at 10:30 that the film was not ready/there. We were offered Game Night instead (which we took, since we wanted to see it anyway) or complimentary tickets. It could have been handled better. Surely the cinema knew about the screening days in advance, they could have checked it was OK the day before, rather than leaving it till the last minute.

i think letting you in to see a film of your choice might have been better given you have pa*d to travel in, even though I know they arent oblige to compensate us. Not the best situation appraisal by the odeon staff there, though they were polite certainly - they might have been kinder had we been Times or Telegraph customers. They get "pink passes" in compensation, and often get let in to watch anything that evening.

I actually couldnt bring myself to go in today for the Sunday screening, in fear of a repeat after trudging through the cold again. I dont mind the cold itself but not for no reward. I wonder if they actually had the film on today.

[D-Fens]

Spielberg has said this is not a film, this is a movie. In reality it's more like a videogame. If you've never played a videogame like this don't worry, a character will explain the rules to another character and then that character will explain them to somebody else just incase you missed it. Sometimes there's a voiceover to explain things when there's only one character around, maybe it's actually an audiobook.

The videogame world in question is called Oasis, it's just like Avatar from 10 years ago with less blue and more 80's movie references. OASIS is an acronym for how this particular game is played. Don't worry about that either because the game is somehow played in about 6 different ways. Mirage would be a better name because the closer you look at it, the more it defies explanation.

The third act particularly is a mess, I lost track of what everybody was wishing for although I'm not sure they even knew themselves. There was a Gremlin though that you like from that other movie so just shut up and roll with it. I think the only reasonable take away from this CGI audiobook is to reject it. The message it seems to offer is often contradicted by the very next scene and when there's a renowned Shakespearean actor playing the creator like somebody freshly lobotomised you have to wonder whether this world of pure nostalgia is actually self-aware.

Ultimately it might be advising that it's not the best idea to look for paradise in somebody else's flawed imagination. If that is what's in play here there might actually be real genius at work.

[RandomHajile]

yeah they forgot to ingest/load it intime for 1030am yesterday at kingston... (a 2h20m movie takes about 2h to load into their cinema server...)
so they prob only started to load it in when it opened at 930am only to realize that it wouldnt fully load till after 11am...
and then used the new/old excuse that its "corrupted", which is plausible but as the other 9 venues showed it fine yesterday then sounds like it was definitely an BS excuse...

offering game night aint that bad but as its 3weeks old had already seen it.

i did ask the staff will the movie be loaded/working tomorrow/sunday and was told yes.

came down 1010am sunday and it was packed! had to sit at the front.

movie starts of well, ending is pretty typical, worth it for that 2nd quest

great as a family movie but i think its quite graphic for a 12a, has one F word also!

just about a 7/10

held the time well but still quite long.

nice soundtrack but expected a few more songs

will def watch again to check out what its like in 3d

[yogi]

If it wasn't for Mr Spielberg's name and the free tickets I probably would have given this a miss.

The trailer didn't look great and I thought the whole thing could get tiresome fairly quickly if it was just 2 hours of spot the reference, but I was pleasantly surprised.

There's a lot of exposition and voiceover to set up the world and quest, but once the challenges start they are thrilling and visually spectacular. I'm not sure if everything would survive close scrutiny, but it all makes enough sense at the time to keep us engaged as the story flies along.

And as expected it's full to bursting with pop culture references old and new, (think I even spotted an It's a wonderful life nod) but it didn't ever overpower the main story or characters and was all part of the fun and all made sense within the world.

Overall it was great fun 8/10

[curlykate8]

I enjoyed it! Trailer and poster did not look as appealing but reality exceeded my expectation. It more appealing for yonger generation i thing due to gaming speacial effects. But was interesting overall. Lots of reference to old of speilbergs movies and friens Zemekis. Its like they made back to the future with new story plot a bit. But wuality is seen through the movie and recoment to see it.

[TibbiShae]

I really enjoyed it though I was slightly disappointed at all the significant plot changes, there were quite a few parts of the book I was hoping would make it to the big screen but I suppose it's understandable with all the pop culture references they had to cram in there.
Loved Mark Rylance as Halliday, he was clearly having a blast with the role.
I feel like I need to see it again to appreciate all the references.

[Diamondrfc]

This was far better than i expected. After trailer i was like i do want to see it looks good and was an added bonus to get the sky vip tickets. I loved the film and will take my kids to see it now also. I was entertained from start to finish. A great mix of effects, storyline, few good laughs and seeing loads characters i recognised from games ive played and movies ive enjoyed.

[LiteupLee]

Saw this at Liverpool one on Monday night with my OH. Better than expected, but far too long. The effects were great, but I couldn't have cared less for the characters. 7.5/10 from me 9/10 from OH. Would have scored higher had it not dragged along like some sort of vanity project and the huge plot holes.