Critical Capsule: Ready Player One

When I first saw the trailer for Ready Player One, I was immediately interested. It was my introduction to the source, as I had never heard of the novel before. I was caught up in the nostalgic references to pop culture of decades gone by. Now, having seen the movie, I enjoyed playing spot the reference, as well as the lengthy horror movie sequence and the appearance of a certain mechanical monster. On the other hand, the story felt like a lot of what I have seen before and the lead actors did not have all that much personality. I had fun enough with it, but that is due to the references to things I like a lot better. Overall, I felt this was a mediocre movie banking on nostalgic recognition rather than doing anything interesting with it.