Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One is the long-awaited big-screen adaptation of Ernest Cline's pop culture-packed virtual reality novel, and it hits theatres next weekend. Considering Spielberg is responsible for some of the most popular and successful movies of all time, and that the 2010 novel was a huge bestseller, the movie has been met with a surprising amount of advance resistance from movie fans. Maybe it was the GCI-heavy trailers, or the movie referencing posters, but many seemed to lower their expectations well in advance of its release.
The good news is that the film is great. While not without flaws, it shows once more that Spielberg is an absolute master of thrilling, crowd-pleasing cinema. So we've put together a few reasons that you should check out Ready Player One, from improvements to the novel and pop culture references to the movie's handling of virtual reality--check it out above. You can also read GameSpot’s Ready Player One review, in which Michael Rougeau described it as "crazy enjoyable" despite some nitpicky issues.
"It's all too easy for those who actually know games to see through the cracks in Ready Player One's virtual world, just like it was in the book. But that's a side effect of what makes this thing so universally appealing: In ditching the arcane layers of rules and conventions necessary for real video game worlds to actually function, this hyper-nerdy story becomes far more accessible.
"If you can get past the nitpicks, there's a really fun movie underneath. And if it leaves the finer details ambiguous or botches a reference to some cherished movie or game along the way--well, we'll always have the originals."
