Good movie that had the potential to be great if it had followed the book. Instead it took The Hobbit movie route and was more of an "inspired by the book" movie. I thought the challenges in the book were better thought out and had a better ending. And since the main character were aged up a few years, it missed the "high school" start that existed in the book. If the movie existed in a vacuum (not based on a book), it would probably get an 8 from me, but looses some luster compared to the book.
loading replies
@majormercyflush I think I liked it more than you, but I just thought it had untapped potential left in the book. I had read the book a few months ago, curiously just before I learned it was going to be a movie, so although not perfectly fresh in mind (I read lots of books, listen to lots of short fiction podcasts), it was fresh enough to know I liked the book's story better. I've subsequently read some articles on the screenplay's development and was disappointed to find out how involved Cline was in this rewrite of his own work, taking a lot of the little details that made the book so good out of the movie, like how he got the "extra life" or time honored "next game" from the quarter he found on the Donkey Kong(?) machine in the book that he beat. Placing a quarter on the game while someone was playing was the way to claim that you had next when I was growing up.
Good movie with the potential to be great. And I grade movies pretty hard (you'll find lots in the 5 to 7 range, a fair number of 8's, a handful of 9's and very few 10's in my reviews).
