The Thirteenth Floor Movie Review | Josef Rusnak | Craig Bierko | Gretchen Mol | Vincent D'Onofrio | Dennis Haysbert | Armin Mueller-Stahl | Bad Movies

Starring: Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Vincent D'onofrio, Dennis Haysbert, Armin Mueller-Stahl

A guy wakes up to find that he is the prime suspect in the murder of his beloved boss. So he was to enter the virtual reality machine, which transports him to a simulation of 1930’s Los Angeles, to figure out the crime.

This movie is one of my enduring sentimental favorites. I saw it three times in the theater and own the DVD. It was only after seeing it three times that I finally felt that I could follow it completely all the way through [maybe I’m just dumb]. It's very serious and complex, and if you're expecting The Matrix, you're in the wrong place.

It's amazing that this, the Matrix and eXistenZ all came out within a month of each other, as they are all very different versions of a similar idea. But where Matrix is ultimately a story about religious enlightenment, and eXistenZ is more of a cautionary tale about video games and playing with virtual realities, this movie explores the possibilities of creating an alternate world for personal reasons, and the idea of a creation discovering that he is just a creation.

Here’s the deal. A guy wakes up to discover that he is the prime suspect in the murder of his boss, whom he adored. They had been working on a virtual reality project in which 1039’s Los Angeles has been recreated. When they enter the machine they essentially “possess” a virtual character, and use his body to do what they like, which is usually the kinds of things you can’t get away with in real life. As the guy investigates the crime, some of the “possessed” characters start to wonder what’s up, and things get real complicated.

The thing that kept drawing me back to this movie is that it captures something that is much more than the sum of its parts: it's not in the storyline, and I don't think it was really "intended" by the filmmakers, but this movie achieves a kind of grieving sadness that I think just arises out of the nature of some of the scenes. It is raises more interesting philosophical questions than The Matrix, in part because the story embodies and dramatizes those questions, rather than just having a few characters talk about them between martial arts sequences.

The sense of sadness comes out in a few ways: this nostalgic yearning for the Los Angeles of the '30s, this wish to create another life and another cast of characters for yourself... and especially the scenes (and there are many) in which characters seem to know one another, but have never met, or in the most affecting scene (the one in the supermarket) where one character knows another very well, but that other character has no idea who the first one is. And then there’s a separate layer of sadness in that when the “possessed” characters realize that they're just players in a game someone else has created, their lives lose all meaning.

The movie is like one of those Russian dolls within dolls-- you keep waking up to a new reality. But soon characters from one reality start to bleed into the others, and it becomes more intriguing, and more dangerous. It remains interesting, but by the end there isn't really one story to follow-- there are many stories and many, many characters.

One little rule that I didn’t understand, and I don’t think comes across very well, but at the same time is key to understanding the whole thing, is this: When you enter the machine, you SWITCH PLACES with your counterpart in the alternate reality. You’re they’re, and they’re here. Thus, if you die in the alternate reality, your counterpart wakes up in THIS reality and takes your place. Without understanding this, a great deal of the movie, and especially the ending coda, don’t make any sense at all.

One unfortunate thing is that the image that you see on the poster and on the cover of the DVD is SUPPOSED to be the most powerful image in the movie, but it isn't-- BECAUSE you have already seen it on the DVD cover. And now on this site.

The recreation of 1937 Los Angeles is very good. It's interesting, however, that it is replicating filmed or postcard versions of LA, rather than a real version-- which fits in with the idealized version created in the simulator. I'd love to see a sequel in which they do the same thing in early New York. I think the film must have much more resonance if you live in and know a bit of the history of L.A.

There is a disturbing element of the film, which rears its head in the first half and then kind of fades away: that the creator (Armin Mueller-Stahl) of the simulator created it in part to simulate having sex with "young girls." The girls they show are all at least 18, but the way they say "Young Girls" leads you to believe that they had something very different—something they couldn't really show in a mainstream movie—in mind. It's a little disturbing—especially once you get to the very end, which may be construed as condoning that behavior. I'm not saying a movie like this is wrong—just that it brings up some disturbing subject matter.

All of the performances are very good-- particularly as they all have to play a few different characters through the course of the movie. There are a few cheesy moments (couldn't they have thought of ANYTHING better than green lasers to evoke the simulator?). Since I saw that this film was produced by Roland Emmerich, I thought it might be a little lightweight. It isn't. It's a good entry to stand right alongside Matrix and Existenz. Not as great and flashy-- but maybe a little deeper. In terms of emotional content, this film is the closest thing to Blade Runner that I've seen in the years since that film. See it, but definitely don't expect "the thrill ride of the summer."

You sure should. But bring your expectations down from constant action… this one’s a LOT more thoughtful, and repays your attention.