Like the book, Ready Player One is a fun, big feel-good adventure

Rating: 6/10 (11 August 2018)

While a bit simple and deus ex machina at times, Ready Player One evokes the same happy adventure and nostalgia that the book did. The biggest surprise to me was the visuals - they looked excellent, both the OASIS and the contrast with the bleak reality. The egg hunt could've been better explained, but the challenges felt very happy and video game like, as intended. The changes from the book made the movie more easily and rapidly digestible. There were many spots in which I was exasperated by a character's irrationality or by deus ex machina in the plot. Art3mis in particular was around many points of frustration, particularly her indefensible decision to not go through the hatch with Wade. Her romance with Wade was also so easy and unoriginal, and when she hid from Sorrento and pals in his main room it was ridiculous that they didn't hear/see her. Sorrento getting past the hundreds of angry people by pointing a gun in the air (nobody tried to tackle him or say anything? Nobody?) and then reaching Wade, seeing him with the egg, and looking accepting and not shooting was bizarre to me. Lots of seemingly impossible situations that deus ex machina got them out of easily, like when Art3mis was trapped and the way of escaping was literally inside her device??? However, most of these points were fairly minor and I didn't feel detracted from the enjoyment of the movie, they just prevented it from being a really good one. They briefly mentioned the reality/OASIS struggle early and really wish they would've developed that theme more, as they largely left it until the end when they tried to come back to it as a concluding, central theme when it was insufficiently developed. Nevertheless, my overall takeaway is quite positive and a happy, easy movie to watch with some questionable plot points.