even worse than the book

Rating: 6/10 (10 April 2018)

The book being a horrible piece of fiction, but quite profuse in its imagery, a movie seemed like a really good chance to build on its strengths and try to round the story and the characters into either a decent movie for kids/young adults or a good sci-fi product.
disappointingly, the only thing that remains is the imagery (watched it as IMAX 3D, I imagine lots get lost with any other version) and a hint at the end about a very different movie focused on Halliday (which could have been but is not).
Mark Rylance and Olivia Cooke have good performances, even when their parts do not lend themselves to that. for the rest of the characters, there is simply not enough entity to build anything. maybe this was meant to be a larger movie at some point (a better one too).
everything else is a fiasco, with a not well developed 2nd act, a therefore lazy 3rd act, and plenty of rolling eyes moments. comedy is interspersed here and there and references are thrown around like some people use cheddar on salads: just because it's there in the fridge and what the heck, let's use all of it. that's a problem with the book as well, but at least the book operates as a window into the mind of the writer (meta-interesting, not interesting itself). here it seems just an attempt to make it more palatable to audiences of all ages, without really trying to provide any consistency.
6 because, hey! it is movie kind of coherent and some sequences are actually entertaining, maybe even worthy of another watch. just not the movie as a whole.