I have been waiting on this review of Ready Player One because I wanted to think about the flick before writing. The flick is based on a book of the same name...well maybe inspired by would be better. It has a 7.9 with 64,101 reviews.
I guess I will start with my personal rating, which is a 6. Yes lower then average and I will be honest that probably is not fair for me and I might go back and revise that upon further views when it comes out on DVD.
Why a 6 fat man you might be wondering and why do you say it is unfair. It gets that because it was SO different than the book. Wait...do not start yelling yet. Yes I know it cannot be the same as the book and you have to make some changes. I realize that and I expected that but there were a few things that I felt were completely changed or left out that changed the story from what I enjoyed. (Do NOT read further if you have not seen the flick/read the book and do not want spoilers)
You have been warned!
The biggest is that Wade is NOT in high school and is actually kind of good in the Oasis. I thought one of the biggest things in the book was that this kid was poor and a high school student. He was the complete underdog when it came to this contest. In the book he practically had to beg borrow and steal just to get to the first key yet now it is just a race and he has the time machine from Back to the Future.
I also did not like that the Og character was basically non-existent in the movie and kind of came off as aloof till the end. I felt it wasted the great skills that Simon Pegg has and the character itself.
Lastly I did not like that it became this team effort to win when another plot point of the story was that it was everyone for themselves until they HAD to team up to take down the big bad guy. Here they were all buddy buddy from almost the beginning.
There were other big plot points that I felt were missing as well like the death of one of the "team" in real life and the fact that Wade actually goes into 101's loyalty camps for months to find out information and does this all WITHOUT anyone helping him but I guess that story is as heart warming as a bunch of people taking out an evil corporation.
That is not to say that this was all bad. If I had not read the book I think I would have enjoyed the flick for what it was. It was mostly well performed, although the man bad guy was kind of bland and I would have liked to see more over the top but that is just a personal choice.
The graphics/special effects/Oasis was amazing and seeing all the various Universes fighting together was cool. Although the fact that we got the new ugly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles instead of the classic 80's animated or comic versions made me a sad panda. I was also very surprised to not have an appearance for any Transformers since Spielberg was involved in that franchise but that is just me.
The length was okay and did not seem to drag even though it clocked in around 2.5 hours. There was not a lot of fluff in the flick that could be cut out. A few minutes here or there but nothing that I saw that was just pointless.
Overall the lower than usual rating comes from change the story more drastically then I think needed. Oh and the fact that we did not get the Dungeon and Dragons key quest and instead got a stupid car chase bugged me A LOT! Any 80's nerd would have put the key in the D&D part and not some stupid race with a T-Rex and King Kong. I did not mind the change to the Shining or leaving out the Monty Python part (although that would have been cooler then what they did) but come on to cut out D&D was just wrong!
Worth seeing on the big screen and probably a large format like RPX or IMAX or EXTREME or whatever your theatre of choice has.
6/10 with a * saying that might get modified up a bit upon further viewings.
Until next time, I am the fat man, and I leave you with this:
No comments:
Post a Comment