Boring and illogical, certainly not for fans of video games!

Rating: 2/10 (5 June 2019)

I love video games & sci-fi movies, I grew up in the 80's and haven't read the book, and considering the amount of complaints on here from people who read the book that seems to be a good thing going into this movie, so seemingly this movie should be a good fit, yet this was one of the most boring, illogical and bland movies I've seen in a very long time, and I've seen several really bad movies lately.
The story is just stupid & makes no sense. In a future where everyone apparently spends all their time playing video games future America has apparently somehow been able to cure the obesity problem. Everyone's apparently poor but can somehow afford to buy a lot of gaming gear and yet not have to work during the day.
It's supposed to take place 20 years into the future, yet most of the technology, movie, music & game references are from current time or the past with a lot of references from the 80's, so apparently kids 20 years from now are a bunch of 80's nostalgics listening to Duran Duran, 40-something years before they were even born, so what they're saying is all great entertainment was conveniently made more than 20 years ago, which just happens to coincide with when the movie was made. It's cheap and shows that they couldn't come up with anything new and original in the movie. Somehow we're just supposed to cheer over and over again for pointless old movie/game references that serve no other purpose than to just show them for "pop culture coolness", Yey.
Another example: Everyone uses VR helmets - a technology that just happens to be part of current gen consoles & PC gaming. The only "futuristic" item are suits where you feel every impact on your body, which apparently is a good thing in competitive gaming, which makes no sense whatsoever.
This modern VR world 20 years from now somehow looks like something from a video game from the PS3 or PS4 generation, what a coincidence. Especially character models look pretty bad, and the long early racing sequence is almost as if it's taken from the PS3 game Motorstorm: Apocalypse from 2011. So, that's what another 20 years of graphics technology will get us?
*Spoilers ahead*
A kid who spends all his life playing video games in virtual reality is surprised that a "girl" he meets in VR could potentially not be a girl at all *shocking*, and falls in love with the girl because, well, he watched all her twitch streams (really, you think twitch is going to be around 20 years from now?? No, but it sounds cool today because that's what all the cool kidz use). Oh, and of course the real life girl so happens to be even prettier than the avatar girl, but with a "hideous" birthmark on her face, "OH NO! How could you love someone so ugly!" I hear the movie writers telling us.
The game is supposed to be all about skill, yet most of the things that happen involve using coin to purchase items, which just so happens to be extremely useful for crucial plot points, see handy time-travelling grenade.
Hacking and cheating is apparently a complete non-issue in a video game where you can win a billion dollars or so, yep sounds about right, and when a couple of kids are close to winning said billions of dollars, everyone else is cheering for them... right.
When the "good guys" take ownership of the VR world, shutting down the game two days of the week is apparently all you need to make people spend more time with eachother again and care more their (miserable) real lives again - and not spend all their time the remaining 5 days of the week playing the game instead. I guess that's about as much as they dared to push that agenda to please both the moms & their kids watching.
*End Spoilers*
Even brainless movies can be good and fun, but it's just impossible to turn the brain completely off to this degree, especially when the movie takes itself so seriously and really there's no good or fun in there. Everything is predictable and shock-full of plot holes, illogical behavior with a paper thin story and character development, I have no idea how this movie is so highly rated, and it's hard to believe that Steven Spielberg would put his name on something this bad.