Watched: January 1, 2019

Kegger Rating: 4 Stars

MM Rating: 3 Stars

Kegger Review:

I read the book on the suggestion of MM, and I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it.  And when the movie came out, I read the book again, to get prepared.  I went into this movie knowing that it wasn’t going to be exactly like the book.  Movies based on books are seldom as good as the book (Under the Tuscan Sun notwithstanding). 

That being said, I found this to be a pretty good movie.  The casting worked, though Aech should have been a little heavier set, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out who Art3mis’s voice reminds me of.  Wade/Parzival explored teen angst well, though I had hoped for just a touch more evidence of growth as the movie progressed.  But the writers (Zak Penn and Ernest Cline) did a superb job giving us enough to empathize with Parzival in a short scene near the beginning.  I wish we could have spent a little more time understanding the back stories of the characters, especially Halliday.  If I’m honest, though, I know that doing so would have brought the movie to a screaming halt, as is typical of extended exposition. 

I was disappointed that the keys and the gates weren’t the same as they were in the book.  I really enjoyed the challenges in the book, and the reasons why those specific challenges existed.  However, the movie challenges made sense and enabled us to get right to the point – pursuing the “Easter Egg”. 

The villain is exactly what you’d want – manipulative, smart, and bad from the beginning.  You know who you’re rooting for, and who you’re rooting against.  That makes viewing easy, especially when you’re just looking for a fun time. 

As my brother reminded me, this movie is completely different from the book.  So, if I take it alone, as its own entity, it was a really good movie – kept me interested, kept me involved in the story, and kept me entertained. 

And, as a result, I want to read the book again.  I enjoy that world, and I want to visit again. 

MM Review

I really enjoyed Ernest Cline’s novel, on which this movie is based.  The prose isn’t remarkable, and the teen angst veers close to Young Adult territory, but it’s a fun adventure.  A scavenger hunt played out in a dystopian future, featuring a full sensory immersive MMORPG and a new take on trailer parks.  Cline wraps in a lot of 80s nostalgia, and while a fair amount of it was lost on me, I appreciated the clear affection with which it was portrayed. 

The movie doesn’t have this heart.  Its characters are shallow, its love story is forced, and it does away with much of what made the adventure work in the novel.  Somehow, though, it still worked for me.

In the novel, the main characters are all competent experts in their craft.  Contrasted with the movie, the characters are equal parts goofy and needy, with the main character (Wade) typically leading the way.  Wade’s motivation is clearly established and progressed throughout the novel, whereas the movie glosses over most of it, which undermines most of what I felt about him. 

As for the supporting characters, two of Wade’s comrades provide typical best friend and love interest foils.  We also have two others who are entirely expendable, raising the question of why they were even included.  The movie gets the main antagonist right, for the most part.  He’s not particularly menacing or competent, but he sneers well at our heroes and their ideals.  We also have a new ancillary villain, providing us some comic relief.

The scavenger hunt adventure is completely modified from the novel, losing much of its excitement, but still retaining enough mystery to feel interesting.  80s nostalgia is replaced with a mix of pop culture references, which works out well enough.  For me, the movie succeeded when exploring the MMORPG elements of loot, and how they impact this world in which most of the planet lives.  The battle scenes aren’t particularly exciting, but they were paced well enough so as not to get boring. 

I went into the movie expecting to be disappointed, so it helped to have my bar set low.  I don’t know if this is a movie that would bear up to multiple viewings, but it was a fun way to pass the time once I set aside the need to have it perfectly emulate the novel.