I went into this with pretty low expectations (although I was a bit excited for the star studded cast: Jing Boran, Angelababy, Janice Wu, Seven Tan, Li Xian, and Li Qin all in one movie :0). Having watched the drama, I know how this story is: the plot offers nothing to interest viewers, the characters and relationships are horribly shallow, and the only thing going for it is its mindless, feel-good quality.

I'll try to stay as objective as possible in terms of reviewing this movie having watched the drama and compare the drama and movie at the end of this review. That being said, it's very very clear this movie tried to fit too much into it's 1 h 42 min time frame. Whereas the drama had more time to flesh things out (whether they effectively fleshed them out is a different question), the movie lacked in plot, character, and relationship development. For instance, the Meng Yiran mean-girl-trope could've been completely sliced out of the plot. She literally showed up twice and added absolutely nothing to the story. Especially for those who haven't watched the drama, the movie offers a cramped, rushed, and incomplete interpretation of the story that jumps all over the place. As a result, that feel-good atmosphere you expect from a college romance is never created.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by Angelababy's Bei Weiwei. Her acting is definitely forced and very unnatural at times, and I would by no means call her a good actress, but she gave Bei Weiwei a bit of nerdy charm that I rather liked. Shockingly enough, her beauty was only mentioned once, and it was easy to think of her as a normal, passionately dorky college kid. As for Jing Boran as Xiao Nai, I can only say that Xiao Nai is fundamentally a terribly written character, a completely perfect, one-dimensional character with zero personality. Still, I appreciated the emotions Jing Boran managed to siphon out of Xiao Nai's lifeless character. Have you seen Jing Boran act like he's in love? Literal hearts coming out of this man's face.

As for Angelababy and Jing Boran together... it's safe to say they have very little chemistry. Part of it is definitely due to the time limit of the movie and the choice to show little of the development of their relationship. Perhaps if the running time were a little longer, they could've been a generic, mediocre cdramaland couple, but their chemistry is nowhere near strong enough to make it in a movie as short as this one. Bei Weiwei and Xiao Nai's relationship also made zero sense to me. By the end, I was still wondering what they like about each other, how they fell in love with each other, and why they were even together.

My biggest complaint has to be the editing. It was almost as if someone filmed a bunch of scenes and put them together using imovie or something. The transitions are a horrible fade out, and most of the time the scenes don't even connect in a way that makes sense. The movie jumps from scene to scene and expects the viewer to keep up, and most of the scenes are left hanging and unfinished. Definitely does not seem like a professional movie. The music as well was unnecessarily loud and drowned out the lines sometimes.

MOVIE VS DRAMA
Of course it's impossible not to compare the movie to the drama and vice versa. The first thing I noticed is that this movie fails to achieve the show Love O2O's laidback atmosphere, mostly because they tried to cram so much in such a little time frame. We also miss the only thing I really liked about the show: the relationship between Xiao Nai and his three hilarious friends. The side characters understandably have less screen time in the movie than in the drama, which put more pressure on the leads to carry the movie.

However, I will say I prefer Jing Boran's Xiao Nai over Yang Yang's Xiao Nai. In my opinion, Jing Boran displayed a wider range of expressions, emotions, and subtleties in acting. I also felt that movie Xiao Nai was more down-to-earth than drama Xiao Nai despite his "perfect" concept. The same actually goes for Angelababy as Bei Weiwei; I thought the movie's portrayal of the characters, although still shallow, was more relatable and more fun than the drama's. The biggest difference between movie Bei Weiwei and drama Bei Weiwei is that drama Bei Weiwei is built up to be a perfect girl: smart, beautiful, soft-spoken and gentle, while movie Bei Weiwei is more rough around the edges, a bit more loud and crazy. I also liked how the movie places Bei Weiwei at an equal level to Xiao Nai by having her a play a large role in the game development team, while in the drama, she is more of an intern in Xiao Nai's company.

Overall, I understand why the drama was better received than the movie, and would probably recommend watching the drama first. However, as far as characterization goes, I would say the movie did a better job than the show.