I had never heard of this movie before, but was glad i got to see some of it. I thought the acting was really great, and the way that you could tell when they were in a game world was really compelling to watch. I liked how you had to give the correct dialect in order to move on with the game, and how certain players will go into 'waiting mode' and sort of drift off and look like a real video game when designed characters do that.
Another cool aspect was the game devices themselves, called game pods. The design was crazy and the anatomy of it was real life like. It was interesting that they chose to make it sort of look like it was a living thing. Which, to them it pretty much was. They could get diseased, etc. and need surgeries.
It fulfilled many of the science fiction fantasy genre markers.
For one, it is a virtual reality game set in the future. The fact that there was such technology and science involved showed that it was really well thought out and an intelligent movie. The fact that the game plug was inserted through the spine with this crazy gun thing, and looks like an umbilical chord, says enough. It has to have a bit of unsettling moments to make you feel like it is foreign and new, very alien like - which is also very sci fi related.
