Fun movie with many flaws

Rating: 5/10 (16 April 2018)

RP1 is a visual treat loaded with fun 80's pop culture references that suffers from so serious flaws. The biggest is the creator of Oasis. It's easy to see why people are entranced by the Oasis but Halliday himself is hardly a compelling figure. Though brilliant and creative, he's uninteresting at best with his blank-faced, stoner affect--and a self-absorbed vindictive person at worst.
His story is that of Ebeneezer Scrooge without the ghostly redemption at the end. In the flashback scenes of him interacting with the more sympathetic Ogden Morrow he's a absent-minded professor type child who clearly isn't listening to his friend. And that scene is the recreation of Halliday's bedroom is horrifying. Halliday's emotionally a 10 year old who never formed anything approaching a healthy human relationship. And he's trapped in perpetual childishness (shown symbolically when Old and Young Halliday walk into the other room and close the door). Not exactly the stuff of rip-roaring blockbuster movies.
Also think of his story with Kira. He meets her. Asks her on a date. Takes her to Kubrick's psycho-sexual freakout "The Shining" on a first date. He's so clueless about women (no sin in and of itself) that he doesn't know he's clueless about women (the true sin). There could have been a quick scene of him asking advice or seeming nervous. And surprise surprise no relationship happens.
And think about it from Kira's perspective: What exactly is Halliday's appeal? Goofy looking. Poor conversationalist. Obssessed in a very specific niche within a niche--80's gaming, pop culture. Socially awkward.
Kira later meets Halliday's partner, falls in love, marries him, and for all the movie tells us lives a reasonably happy life with him. Halliday's response to his only friend Morrow finding love: forcing him to sell him his shares in the company. Oh yeah, and he weirdly "punishes" Kira by trapping an avatar of her in a series of eternal dances with zombies inside a remake of "The Shining" ballroom. Again, Halliday not at all attractive physically, emotionally, personally