The people who will enjoy Ready Player One most are little kids and pop-culture obsessed nerds like me.
There's your Twitter summary of the movie. The kids will enjoy it because it moves quickly and is packed with absolutely gorgeous stuff to look at. My people will enjoy it because it is packed to the gills with all of the pop-culture references you could possible hope for. The movie plays like a love-letter to the crazy-go-nuts cinema action and ideals of the 80's, but it's not even close to just 80's pop culture on display here. Whether you're looking for a nostalgia trip or modern video game characters, you'll feel right at home with Ready Player One.
Everyone else is likely to be at least a little disappointed. So I think it's fair to call this movie polarizing. To be fair, I don't think there was any way to tell this story that would make it universally accepted, and I think it's telling that everything bad I've heard people say about this movie basically comes down to "I never have really watched these kinds of movies or TV, and I don't play video games. Mostly there wasn't anything in here for me."
And frankly that's not wrong. I agree that without the cultural background I have (and my perpetual inner ten-year-old freaking out over the visuals) there's not a ton of great reasons to love this movie. It's well made, sure, the characters aren't badly written and the script is fine. The story is easy to follow and kinda neat, and the pace is nice and frantic in that particular Spielbergian way. But it's not as good as a half-dozen other Spielberg adventure romps, so quality sure isn't the reason you should watch it.
The acting isn't terrible, but it's hardly amazing. The script is passable, the settings are good, the visuals are stunning and unique, but most of their greatness comes from the familiarity of the vistas and the characters that fill them for people who get all the easter eggs. And really, that's the whole gist of this movie. It's an okay movie. Depending on how charitable I'm feeling, I might even go so far as to say it's good. But it's not great. It didn't blow my socks off with inherent quality or artistry, and I'd rank it as a solid "Redbox it if you've got a free code, or wait for it to show up on Netflix".
Unless you're a pop-culture fanatic. In which case you seriously screwed up not seeing this in theaters, and you should probably plan on buying it. Because you will watch it a dozen times or more and still not catch every pop-culture reference in this movie. You will relate to at least one of the characters so hard, both in their avatar form and in real life. You will laugh, shudder, and maybe even cheer when normal people would yawn. This movie is so unapologetically for you that it's a little weird at first. But enjoy it, because you're the only one that will.
It was critically panned for good reasons. It's not an amazing movie, and for a film helmed by Spielberg it's downright disappointing. Unless you're a part of an absurdly small sliver of the population, in which case you should be tickled pink that anyone ever managed to get a big-budget movie like this made so specifically for you.
Trust me, it probably won't happen again.
There's your Twitter summary of the movie. The kids will enjoy it because it moves quickly and is packed with absolutely gorgeous stuff to look at. My people will enjoy it because it is packed to the gills with all of the pop-culture references you could possible hope for. The movie plays like a love-letter to the crazy-go-nuts cinema action and ideals of the 80's, but it's not even close to just 80's pop culture on display here. Whether you're looking for a nostalgia trip or modern video game characters, you'll feel right at home with Ready Player One.
Everyone else is likely to be at least a little disappointed. So I think it's fair to call this movie polarizing. To be fair, I don't think there was any way to tell this story that would make it universally accepted, and I think it's telling that everything bad I've heard people say about this movie basically comes down to "I never have really watched these kinds of movies or TV, and I don't play video games. Mostly there wasn't anything in here for me."
And frankly that's not wrong. I agree that without the cultural background I have (and my perpetual inner ten-year-old freaking out over the visuals) there's not a ton of great reasons to love this movie. It's well made, sure, the characters aren't badly written and the script is fine. The story is easy to follow and kinda neat, and the pace is nice and frantic in that particular Spielbergian way. But it's not as good as a half-dozen other Spielberg adventure romps, so quality sure isn't the reason you should watch it.
The acting isn't terrible, but it's hardly amazing. The script is passable, the settings are good, the visuals are stunning and unique, but most of their greatness comes from the familiarity of the vistas and the characters that fill them for people who get all the easter eggs. And really, that's the whole gist of this movie. It's an okay movie. Depending on how charitable I'm feeling, I might even go so far as to say it's good. But it's not great. It didn't blow my socks off with inherent quality or artistry, and I'd rank it as a solid "Redbox it if you've got a free code, or wait for it to show up on Netflix".
Unless you're a pop-culture fanatic. In which case you seriously screwed up not seeing this in theaters, and you should probably plan on buying it. Because you will watch it a dozen times or more and still not catch every pop-culture reference in this movie. You will relate to at least one of the characters so hard, both in their avatar form and in real life. You will laugh, shudder, and maybe even cheer when normal people would yawn. This movie is so unapologetically for you that it's a little weird at first. But enjoy it, because you're the only one that will.
It was critically panned for good reasons. It's not an amazing movie, and for a film helmed by Spielberg it's downright disappointing. Unless you're a part of an absurdly small sliver of the population, in which case you should be tickled pink that anyone ever managed to get a big-budget movie like this made so specifically for you.
Trust me, it probably won't happen again.
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