It was a fun little romp with some neat visuals and I don't regret going to see it, though if you're looking for classic Spielberg storytelling with heart then you're going to be disappointed. The characters were likeable enough but pretty shallow. I've always hated the "but the book is better!" crowd because, well, of course the book is going to be better but it was very hard not to join them on this. It makes sense that the original really would not translate well to the big screen. It's just very, very different.

Obviously it's crammed full of references to pop and gaming culture which is the premise of the thing and I found myself enjoying them. I did think it was odd that it kept most of the references to the book's key era the 80's, so think John Hughes and Duran Duran, but then all of a sudden, look, stuff from Minecraft and Overwatch! Not going to deny that even my inner fanboy got a little bit excited when there was a (SPOILER)GoldenEye N64 reference in there!

Also, Mark Rylance kills it. smurfing kills it.