The book is better. It always will be. I think everyone knows that you cannot take a 15 hour book and condense it to a 130 minute movie without losing a lot of what made it special.
Firstly there is no after-credit scene. So dont bother waiting.
The opening title was just white text on a black screen, which is rather disapointing given the clever 'maze' logo all the marketing had.
The film gets rid of the gates, most of the real world stuff, all the school stuff, and all character development. Our heroes just have all the weapons, cars, robots that they had to earn in the book. Even before finding the first key. Wade already owns the Delorian and Aech just happens to have Iron Giant in his garage.
They make a number of dramatic changes to the main plot, some for visual storytelling (such as adding a car chase) and others to expand the role other characters worth in the plot, such as Art3mis going to IOI instead of Parzival.
My main issue was the lack of character arcs. They all strated off strong, and ended the exact same way. The heart of the book was how this normal person rose from being one of us, to the savior of the universe. The film is missing that. Wade no-longer talks to the sweet old lady at the bottom of the stacks. He no-longer fixes people's old oasis machines, instead he steals there gloves?
Those real world connections are lost and he just seems like a rich spoilt kid from the start. His reasons for not joining IOI are never explained. We as audinence members have no idea why he would not have taken the money. But on that, IOI are also made out to be idiots. They dont solve any puzzles or collect any of the keys. In the book they were far more competent.
Then there is the whole rebellion side story which was not in book, hardly touched upon, was not explained, had unexplained henchmen, and ended abruptly. But the sheer fact that they had an army to fall back on in the real world weakened our connection to them for us as an audience. They were no longer the small guy going after the big corporation, now they were a small army going after what seemed to be just one man (Nolan) who was afraid of guns, and a mercenary woman who was beaten up by an eleven year old kid. The bad guys became a joke. Not to mention so stupid in that they keep there passwords written down for the world to see.
The film captures the adventure and spectacle of the book thats for sure, but is missing its heart. And they shoehorned several side characters (Rick) into the movie which really could have been left out and there screen time devoted to more puzzle solving or building the relationship.
They could have left i-Rok, Daito and Shoto out the story and it would not have changed anything. In fact, giving Nolan all of i-R0ks jobs would have helped his character.
There is almost zero world building for the real world. They show pizza delivery drones that can fly around the city and place bombs on buildings, but somehow are unable to follow a giant delivery truck featuring the worlds most wanted down the road. Ignoring speed cameras and satellite tracking as well. Again, another example of incompetency the villains demonstrate.
Perhaps I love the book so much, that its hard for me to separate the source material for this movie adaptation. But the book was not just about 80s nostalgia, it was about growth of characters as they went on this adventure together. It was about making sacrifices when needed and learning to work as a team to open the last gate. None of which was required for this movie.
I also want to mention the lack of nostalgia music. The trailers had some great songs, with Pure imagination being outstanding. None of them however are played in the movie. With the exception of jump at the start, that felt out of place as it was too fast paced for someone just walking.
Still watch it in the cinema as its an experience you have to see. But read the book, or listen to the great Will Wheaton audiobook as well, as its a very different story with more depth and love than the film portrays.
I rate it 6.5 out of 10.
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