I can't imagine that anyone who read and liked Ernest Cline's dazzling novel could be satisfied with this film adaptation of it.

Which is odd, since Cline co-adapted the screenplay. Maybe he wanted to avoid the trap of the movie never living up to its source, so he decided to take the thing in an entirely different direction so it would be harder to compare the two. In any case, what lives on the screen resembles the novel only in the barest of outlines. Gone is the cleverness of the novel and its geeky reverence for 1980s pop culture. In its place is a soulless attempt to recreate one of those adventure movies from that decade, like "Goonies" or "Back to the Future," but without the sensibility to pull it off. Again, very odd given that the director of this film, Steven Spielberg, practically redefined the adventure sci-fi movie. But he feels like the wrong match for this material. The movie is like watching a movie about 80s nostalgia made by someone who doesn't feel it and is trying to manufacture it based on a guess as to what it might feel like.

Mostly the film is just visually overwhelming. A bunch of visual effects artists vomit a bunch of CGI on to the screen to see what will stick, and the end result is to numb the audience into submission.

Grade: C