Rent Ready Player One (2018)

Bit meh - Ready Player One review by RD

It seems I am one of the few that did read the book first.

I have to say that the book, although it does also wallow in nostalgia, is a bit more coherent than the film. The puzzles are a bit more in depth and engaging, but I guess that's the nature of book vs. film.

The film did have it's moments, but alas, they were only moments, and as I said, it was just less engaging of a story than the book

Very long and boring computer game masquerading as a movie aimed at the Chinese market - Ready Player One review by PV

I endured this movie - I didn';t enjoy it. The whole thing is basically like a computer game. Way too long and, frankly, BORING.

I couldn't identity with any characters or care if they got killed or whatever.

The plot is utter hokum. No dramatic tension. Dreadful overblown score too.

NO MAGIC in this whatsoever as there was in many old Spielberg movies though to be fair he didn't write it (this monstrosity is based on a novel I shall try very hard to avoid for the rest of my life).

So achingly pc too - one white male out of a team of 5. Two females, one black, female and sassy (itself a stereotype); the other a sort of girl-power metoo man-girl co-lead. Then a Japanese male and a Chinese child - and lots of karate martial arts moves and set pieces ALL cynically designed to appeal to the massive Chinese market.

Not worth watching unless you're 12 with the attention span of a puppy and like computer games.

Fun but lacking what made the book special - Ready Player One review by Other Worlds

I remember reading the book and loving it, so I was really looking forward to this. As someone who was around in the 80's the book was full ( and I do mean FULL) of references to music/movies/games that I was familiar with , there were plenty of moments where I laughed after being reminded of some thing I had otherwise forgotten. You won't have any of those moments in the movie , occasionally one of the characters will need to introduce a comment about how '.., this was popular in the 80's .." but in truth it does not dwell or rely on any recollection of the decade.

I'm OK with that , I understand that many of the people who see the movie won't even have been born then so that's OK , in the meantime everyone will likely enjoy the movie on its own terms .Which is a series of chase and fight scenes , highly kinetic , brilliantly graphic and very imaginative - but if you were a teenager in the 80's read the book instead you'll have a lot more fun.

Good translation of the book - Ready Player One review by Champ

I was keen to see this after reading the book, which I thought was very good indeed. I'm surprised by the number of negative views on here, as I really enjoyed the film, and in fact watched it twice in a week before I sent the disk back. I'm slightly too old to be of the computer gaming 80s generation, and know absolutely nothing about gaming, but that wasn't an issue at all.

I really enjoyed the conceptual ideas, and about people retreating from the real world by losing themselves in an online world, which I think is very relevant to today. I generally don't like CGI heavy films at all, but because the CGI in this was actually part of the plot of the film, again, I was fine with that part of it.

Speilberg is such a master storyteller, and even on my 2nd viewing I was on the edge of my seat. Very happy to give this 4 stars

Not Ready... - Ready Player One review by trbp72

I had heard so many good things about this movie from friends and reading other reviews, I was really looking forward to watching this...being a gamer and child of the 1980's myself...but I came out of it really disappointed! It just didn't click with me at all! The visuals are amazing...the acting is fairly good...the nods to 1980's culture and iconic characters are fun...but this movie's plot seems really contrived!

I feel like Spielberg wanted to update Tron or something but that film already exists, is called Tron: Legacy...and is better than this movie! Hell Tron is better than this movie and that was actually made in the 1980's! As the credits rolled I then realised that Ernest Cline who wrote the book that this movie is based on 'co-wrote' the script for the movie...and that really made me wonder whether I should even read the book!? (I appreciate that sometimes the book is better than the movie...and vice versa). All in all, It's a mis-step in Speilbergia...I am a big Spielberg fan...though I guess now I don't like 2 of his movies (this and E.T.!)...

Eighteen year-old me would have loved this - but at fifty-six, not so much... - Ready Player One review by Strovey

Having never read the novel and only seen a few reviews of Ready Player One so I went into the film with no idea what to expect.

I’ll say from the start as a slightly dull, fifty-six year old man with a grey beard I find the current trend for nostalgia-porn dull in itself. Naval gazing and eulogising about the glorious past leaves me cold. I was eighteen in 1980 and it was not fantastic nor was it ‘crap’ it was just a time. Some of the music was good, some was awful, some films were great, some were dross – do you know what? Just like now.

The acting in this film is good with Olivia Cooke once again showing why she is getting picked for roles left right and centre, and none of the vocal-fry that irritated me so much in TV’s Vanity Fair. Tyler Sheriden is believable and sympathetic and very ‘normal’ for the role of ‘hero’ likewise the supporting roles – all are believable ‘video gamers’. It would be too easy not to miss the target of the video gamers avatar and what the real person is like and this film hammers that to the hilt – like I said it was too easy a target. The baddy, played with some lovely scenery chewing, by Ben Mendelsohn, seems to exist to be bad, his motive, like so many films, is just to be corporate greedy. I understand this trope and there is some truth in it but it would be nice to see some nuance from time to time.

The film moves along at an exciting pace and certainly has some great visuals of the near future and it was fun for ten minutes, when in the OASIS, to see which ‘characters’ and pieces of nostalgia you can spot but like so many modern blockbusters we do end up with hugely confusing set-pieces of explosions, impossible derring-do escapes and confusing pyrotechnics. This type of action must be for the younger generation because in every film I ever seen featuring these ‘exciting’ battle and set pieces I usually get bored and confused. Near the end of Ready Player One I had no idea what was going on and ended seeing how many repeated place-holder creatures were popping in the scenes – they are there too.

Certainly, as film, I don’t know the book, Ready Player One seems to be a blatant nostalgia-fest with constant references both oblique and obvious but this to me is the real reason for its existence, the story is fairly simple, made to appeal to the video-game generation but nothing that you have not seen here or there. The trouble is when I see Robo Cop for a fleeting second it makes me want to the original Robo Cop and not Ready Player One. For me that is biggest problem of Ready Player One, from time-to-time it reminded me of better films I had not seen for a while.

All in all, it is a well-made film, and well-acted, with some stunning visuals and rip-roaring storyline but on the negative side it is not as original as it thinks it is, it wallows in nostalgia, loves exposition and can be confusing at times, especially near the end with the battles and set pieces.

Ready Player One is okay but I won’t be watching it again in thirty-years time.

Good Harmless Fun - Ready Player One review by DH

A bit more of a kids film than I expected, so it has to be viewed through that prism. Having said that, it was watchable, good harmless entertainment with some good CGI work.

The only thing that jarred a bit was that the "real life" street scenes of Ohio USA were actually clearly filmed in the UK, which felt kind of low budget compared to the CGI world scenes.