Anytime you take a complex story full of iconic moments and try to condense it down to 2 hours, you're just asking for trouble. As someone who read (and enjoyed) the original light novel, I knew up front not to get my expectations too high, but I had still hoped for a bit more than I got. Caricature characters, throwing out glib and rushed lines, a barely coherent storyline (which scarcely resembled the novel) and chaotic action sequences, just for starters. That being said, I blame the director more than the cast, since I did feel the actors could have delivered better performances if they weren't in such a hurry.
If this film had any redeeming points at all, it would be the polished cinematography and CG (both were decent, considering the film's budget). Lines aside, the actors also did a reasonable job of acting to green screen, which is notoriously difficult. There were also a handful of scenes overlaying the game world with reality, which were creative and did a surprisingly good job of conveying the feeling of belonging to both the 2-d and 3-d world.
ROMANCE RATING: 7/10. As per the novel, there was only one kiss scene, but it was fairly long and the actors had reasonably good chemistry. Bear in mind that while the scene did feature "A" door, it is not "THE" iconic office door from the novel.
In summary, I'm sorry to say this movie was weak in almost every way. Fans of the novel will certainly be disappointed and newcomers are unlikely to develop any interest in the novel. Not recommended. HOWEVER, if you have to choose between this film and the drama, I probably would choose this, mainly because, as others have mentioned, Angela Baby and Boran Jing have acceptable chemistry whereas Yang Yang and Shuang Zheng did not.
