Extremely mediocre film on all levels

Rating: 8/10 (29 March 2018)

As a fan of Spielberg's films, I was disappointed at how generic the story was, and that many of the crucial action scenes have the typical Hollywood choreography where the actor jumps a chasm, for example, and juuuuust makes it to the other side - first missing it but then using an item like a pick to stab the wall and is hanging from the end of the tool. Whew, just made it! I sighed and facepalmed now and then when scenes like this came up, which they did with growing frequency towards the end.
As a gaming fan, I thought everything was a total miss. No real retro game characters like Pac-Man. What few characters were recognizeable were shown in the trailers. The movie was all about solving puzzles, and they were all centered around non-gaming stuff, mainly 80's pop culture stuff. Nothing went deep into gaming skills or techniques. It's as if the whole video game atmosphere of the movie is just to mask a simple adventure story. The worst part? The entire movie hinges on a video game that only a supergeek would have an interest in seeing onscreen. I shook my head during the climactic scene.
As a nostalgia fan, I really think the movie really failed to deliver. The music throughout the movie only helped remind me how lame the 80's actually was. References to old movies were not really pointed out. Much like a tourist on a trolley through a place like Universal Studios, it's up to us the viewers to point at the screen and tell people around us 'oh that thing is from the movie blah blah and oh that thing is from....'. The movie really felt like a boring tour of pop culture. Where a movie like Guardians Of The Galaxy infused comedy with the pop culture references, this film just puts stuff up on the screen so it can be noticed, and then it's gone. No humor, no fun.
To sum this movie up, it's a really cliche Spielberg action film with poor videogame and pop culture references just tossed in with no real heart. Watch this movie once if the trailer piques your curiousity, but this will make you glance at the time on your smartphone if you dare watch it again. Spielberg seems to be weak in the comedy department, which is what Ready Player One sorely needed. Best part of the movie? Olivia Cooke. Sadly she was on rails with the script and couldn't exude her usual deadpan comedy skills as she did in Thoroughbreds, a great film which just left the theater before this movie came in.