It is a frustratingly corny cop-out – the same equivalent of horror films where the protagonist wakes up and the preceding events are revealed to be a dream. Unfortunately, The Thirteenth Floor is lumbered with a frustrating twist ending – the same everything-that-has-just-gone-on-has-been-a-Virtual-Reality-illusion ending that also wrecked eXistenZ. Craig Bierko in the Virtual Reality simulation of Los Angeles of 1937 There is also the idea of characters within a Virtual Reality simulation suddenly becoming self-aware and discovering the limitations of their artificial existence and then – the ingenious twist that nearly turns The Thirteenth Floor into a great science-fiction film – the suggestion that this reality may be just another virtual simulation that the hero of the story is slowly becoming aware of. The mystery deepens with the revelation that the beautiful woman and love interest of the piece is someone who does not exist and may only be a character emerged from a Virtual Reality simulation. This is a plot strand that travels close to the recent, brilliant Dark City (1998), a film that also had a remarkable number of similarities to The Matrix. For one, it has a plot that juggles some potentially interesting ideas and elements – it begins with a murder mystery that in an intriguing set of developments we learn may have been conducted by the hero who has no memory of what he was doing at the time and could have been taken over by one of the people who can pop into reality and inhabit the bodies of others. The Thirteenth Floor is not a particularly bad film – in fact, for a time it comes close to almost being a very good film. Coming in at third place, behind the disappointment on the high expectations that one had for eXistenZ, was The Thirteenth Floor. Of the three, The Matrix was way out in front, leagues ahead of the others – a classic that will define the genre for years to come. (Best forgotten might by the video-released Christian End Times film Revelation (1999) and the tv series Harsh Realm (1999) from Chris Carter, which only lasted for nine episodes). The Thirteenth Floor was the third in 1999’s spate of Virtual Reality movies, following The Matrix (1999) and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999).
0 kommentar(er)
