Terrible

Rating: 2/10 (8 April 2018)

This movie is terrible. I've never written an IMDb review before, but I honestly felt it was necessary to say my bit in this case, because somehow this movie has gotten some very high ratings.
To start off, the world this exists in is unrealistically and boringly constructed. It's supposedly set in 2047, Columbus, a city which has become the most populous in the world because it was where the Oasis game was created. This is a nice idea, but the entire point of the game is that players don't need to be near to each other, I don't see why they would move to overcrowded, expensive, uncomfortable Columbus just for this.
The introduction given to this world is not at all well-done either - the main character flat-out narrates the way the world is, and yet still manages to explain a lot of useless things, and simultaneously glossing over some important details.
Very early in the movie, the main character's aunt dies in a supposedly sad and dramatic scene - this is impressively underwhelming. The aunt had only a few minutes of screen time at that point, and no background given. She wasn't even a particularly protaganistic character. This underwhelming death was made even more difficult to care about by the main character's reaction - after a short amount of time, he seemed to have forgotten about it.
This is just one of many examples of very poor character development - the main character's relationship with Artemis is forcibly crammed into a few very short and uninformative scenes, until a point where we're supposed to feel empathy for them as a couple. Their attempt to do this quickly and professionally fails, completely.
Some parts and details of the story are completely inconsistent or illogical - generally I'll let these things slide in stories, since it's not really the point of the story, but they were so bad here I felt they needed a mention in this review. There are too many to list, but since this is a Spoilers review, I think anybody reading it will already know what I mean.
The ultimate morals and themes behind the story were slightly more reasonable, but still somewhat lacking. The end of the movie quickly shoved in the way in which reality will always have a certain charm over simulated reality, but this was never really proven throughout the movie - all of the protagonists met in a simulated reality, and their battle against corporate control was fought there.
The movie also showcased an example of excessive corporate control which can come about from a brainwashed public, which was reasonably well fit in, but was not made a particularly central part of the movie.
On the flipside of things, there are some nice subtleties in the movie that possibly deserve a mention. It includes countless references and Easter eggs to other parts of pop culture, but also subtleties with character's clothing, wording, and other similar things. Unfortunately, these are difficult to spot, shrouded by the mess of bad CGI and plot.
The plot of the movie itself could be worse, but it's very predictable.
Finally: the CGI and cinematography. For some reason which still confuses me, the parts of this movie set and filmed in the real world still looked unbelievably fake and awful, which only contributed to the unrealistic setting and characters. I have no idea how to describe it any more than that: it just didn't look like reality.
The cinematography was neither notably good nor bad.
I was only able to break my way through this movie watching it with a group of friends, laughing at the ridiculous plot pacing and story. I would almost recommend it for the hilarity of the flaws, but it is definitely not worth watching alone or in cinemas.