Movie Review: Ready Player One

My Friend CJ gave me this book as a gift many years ago, he obviously knows me well! Regrettably I never finished the book on account that I moved and it's hiding in a box somewhere in my basement still..
So did I enjoy the movie? Yes
Will Joe movie goer? Maybe, but they will NOT appreciate all the pop culture references!
I felt there was alot of exposition hidden in conversation to make the movie more accessible to the masses. I didn't need that but I understand that there are many who would.
Spielberg did a great job explaining the economy in the oasis and how it affected the real world economy, which I found extremely relevant in the wake of the Star Wars Battlefront II controversy with the micro-transactions and loot crates.
It also made me reminisce about the years I spent playing FFXI and that MMO's economy which was fully functional and how people were selling high level accounts for real life $$$.


I have a feeling RPO may end up being one of those films like Tron that years from now we'll watch it and say " DAYUUM Earnest Cline saw the future before anyone else!" We're now in the 8th generation of consoles and VR gaming is in it's infancy, I can easily imagine whole game worlds or a virtual version of Playstation Home (that was a thing last generation).
The Oasis was very well realized and I wasn't distracted by the switch between the real world and the virtual unlike when I watched Cameron's Battle Angel Allita trailer.
My only gripe I have with the movie was Serano and F'Nale came across a little Disney XDish for me.
Now I'm hoping someone can answer these two nagging questions for me Was Serano's avatar dark Clark Kent?
And did they ever reveal who IROK was IRL?
I've been playing video games since the Atari 2600 and still do so I truly appreciated the story and ALL the Easter Eggs and references in it. My son actually recognized some of the avatars based on "real" video game characters...Ryu, Chun Li etc.
And for all the younger gamers out there everything about Adventure and the first Easter Egg in video games is true.
I think just about anyone can enjoy Ready Player One but if you were born around the same time as me and played video games and watched Kubrick/ Spielberg/ Lucas movies and watched Saturday morning cartoons you'll have a greater appreciation of this movie.

B