Ready Player One (2018)

“Ready Player One” is one of the few instances where the movie is actually better than the book.
“Better” in this context being that slamming your hand in the door once is better than doing it seven times.

The movie had the benefit of not being told from Wade “Parzival” Watt’s first-person perspective. He narrates the opening, but that’s not his inner dialogue. By cutting out his painfully persistent brain drivel, I didn’t spend the entire movie hating every possible aspect of the protagonist.

The movie also removed a lot of the relevant context for the enemy. “Innovative Online Industries” (or “IOI” for short) in the book is a company with less than ideal motives, but provides a respite for the common man from an inexplicably collapsed America (the rest of the world is fine though, somehow). In the movie, IOI falls just short of showing off their company logo: “We’re the bad guys because the plot needs a corporate bad guy.”
Even worse: the corporate head bad guy has pinned his entire “evil plot” on being able to show you pop-up ads - a feat that’s held at bay today with simple extensions on your favorite web browser, a nifty trick I’m sure won’t be forgotten by 2045.
Unlike the book, the movie does a horrible job of showing the audience which movement in the real world correlates to which movements in the virtual world, like showing us scenes where the decidedly not-athletically-inclined Wade does a very impressive spinning/leap kick in-game, right after showing this he has to lift his hands in the real world to lift a digital object.

In 2001, Square Enix made “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” It wasn’t a good movie, but the CGI animation for the faces was so well animated that it found its way into the uncanny valley. Despite being made in 2018, “Ready Player One” was full of CGI faces and people that already look out of date. 
Good job, Amblin Studios.

When this movie came out in theaters, Megan suggested we wait until it came out to rent before we watched it - I’m glad I agreed. I liked being able to voice my gripes from the comfort of my own couch, for the $2.00 Redbox rental fee. If you like seeing Easter eggs in a movie that’s literally about Easter eggs, you’ll mildly enjoy all of the references. Otherwise, I don’t recommend it.