eXistenZ

April. 19,1999      R
Rating:
6.8
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Trailer Synopsis Cast

A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.

Jennifer Jason Leigh as  Allegra Geller
Jude Law as  Ted Pikul
Ian Holm as  Kiri Vinokur
Willem Dafoe as  Gas
Don McKellar as  Yevgeny Nourish
Callum Keith Rennie as  Hugo Carlaw
Christopher Eccleston as  Seminar Leader
Sarah Polley as  Merle
Robert A. Silverman as  D'Arcy Nader
Oscar Hsu as  Chinese Waiter

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Reviews

GurlyIamBeach
1999/04/19

Instant Favorite.

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ThedevilChoose
1999/04/20

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

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Lidia Draper
1999/04/21

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

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Curt
1999/04/22

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

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tasospoursanidis
1999/04/23

EXistenZ is the classic 1999 pre millennium era movie. Right after seeing the description and pictures about it I felt so nostalgic, I sort of knew it was going to be at least great. This was my introduction to David Cronenberg, a rather eccentric, weird but also unique writer and director. The movie doesn't have a steady course, it can go from slow to fast at any minute. And you will be confused through the whole duration of it. The sense of a dark, hypnotic and ritualistic atmosphere in things is great. The main factor that made me love it is Isolation and the sense of a small world.Cronenberg's unique looking pods imply that it's more than a game due to the fact that they're made out of flesh and are also living organisms. eXistenZ is an idea, an imperceptible feeling, a dream. An idea of leaving the boring, pointless and trivial world and entering in a world which you can be the master. Characteristically as in real life there are characters which exist just because they exist, they are part of a system, having a specific course into the game and being just pawns of your direction. There is a moment in the movie where Jude Law's character is wondering what's the point of the game if there are no missions, which indicates that he's far from understanding it. But as the "game" progresses he enjoys the thrill more and more. And that's what it is about. The thrill that you are free to do anything you want besides the dangers of reality. You can get lost in it pretty easily though. A very important moment in the movie is when Jennifer's character kills Ian Holm's character saying he was just a game character and Jude Law's character is wondering if it's reality or game. This indicated that you can lose the sense of reality vs game fairly easy, but you don't care about it because you want to feel the game at its full purpose. As we saw, Jennifer's character was highly euphoric everytime she was in the game, and rather bored in reality. It's the idea of living in your own tiny world and the game progresses depending on your character and personality.The movie has a huge sense of metaphoric feelings and messages about life, how we see life, how we want our life to be, how our choices define our characters, how we're searching for meaning in our lives and how we can be lost between a virtual and the real world. One could argue that the virtual world is fake, but what if real life is so pointless that feels fake and the virtual world feels even more real than reality is? I'll leave you wondering with that question..A really crazy trip and an all time favorite movie that is really underrated.

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Chris Merrick
1999/04/24

The idea of this movie and the way it was put together to take the audience on a inception like ride was amazing, although it has a couple of things that could have made it much better.To start off, the thing about this movie that really brought it down in my eyes was the acting, and line delivery. The acting was sub- par, it wasn't not bad, but it definitely was not good. Some bits just felt really fake and unbelievable, a lot of the actors reactions to situations, especially in the last scenes, just felt very unreal, as if they weren't really trying, and the director wasn't being firm enough with the actors about how he wanted them to be.The second point was the script, some parts of it just seemed really strange, or unnecessary. The sexual-tension between the two characters made the movie feel comedic and silly at some points. Obviously having two attractive young main characters, there is going to be sexual tension, but the way it played out seemed unrealistic. I think the director did intend for some parts to be comedic, but it really distracted me from what I think the director made me want to feel.The last point is the game devices, it was just plain weird. I don't understand why the director couldn't have made it an electronic device. It was another one of those things that just made it feel strange, strange can be good, but this was just an unnecessary strange.Now for the good parts. This movie really makes you think, and it grabs you from the start. It makes you question how real is this reality we are living in, could it just be a game? Are we just actors in a simulation, playing our role for this lifetime? When a director can make an audience think things life this, I love it.The way the movie takes you through the whole story is really interesting, it takes random turns, it confuses you, makes you wonder what the hell is going, on. But in the end, it all comes together.Honestly, it's hard for me to say much more without spoiling anything. I highly recommend this to anyone into existential themes in movies. Try to ignore the flaws, and let the movie take you on it's journey.

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Mason Brown
1999/04/25

The film was directed by David Cronenberg, who for me is either a hit or miss. This film, (while it had it's upsides, but I'll get to that later) was an, unfortunate miss. Jude Law is usually an incredible actor, and his performance in this is serviceable, but he is god-awful at doing an American accent. Just about every aspect of this film doesn't reach it's potential. The performances are OK, but not great, the directing is OK, but not great, and the script was... not very good. A few plot holes, and by the climax of the film I was not invested in what was happening at all. Also, I've now figured out that David Cronenberg has a strange "tentacle/foot fetish". There were a few serious moments involving tentacles that made me laugh out loud. The only upside to the film was the puppetry, some of these puppets/special effects were very realistic looking and pretty gross at that. But other than that, the film was a complete mess.

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Christopher Reid
1999/04/26

The ending left me with goosebumps. I had a strong feeling of déjà vu and felt like the movie had actually stopped to ask me a question directly. It was like an electrical jolt that left me sitting there reflecting on the ideas still floating around in my mind. A nice feeling, exactly what you want from a sci-fi thriller.Much of the movie revolves around the simple question of how do you know if this is reality you're in right now? Maybe you're in a game. You could even be in a game within a game. How can you ever tell for sure? By itself, that question can be a bit dull. A pointless unanswerable question, only asked for the sake of sounding clever. But in the right context, it has a much deeper relevance and can be unsettling.Do violent video games make us violent? Or do we create and play violent video games because we are violent? Or can they be a healthy outlet for us with things we would never do in real life? Can we separate reality and games?In eXistenZ, the characters play games. Games that look and feel extremely real. Jude Law's character is new to them, like us. And naturally, he is a bit uncomfortable at first. It is unnerving how real the game is. I personally find many technologies far too invasive or "user-friendly" (dumbed down so I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes) for my liking. I prefer transparency and control. So I would probably hate a video-game that was too real. I like to see the pixels, I like to be able to pause and get a drink. If something's going to look real, it may as well be real.Anyway, violence occurs in the games of eXistenZ. I guess it may as well. I mean, if you're in a virtual world, why not do all the things you can't do in real life? Explore weird personal sexual and violent fantasies, or just try things out. What does it feel like to kill someone? For me, this is just a bottomless pit that I have no interest in going down. You have to stay connected to reality. You can always imagine things, think about stuff, read books or watch movies. I love video games but as a form of art. A story told with words, music, images and gameplay. Like a movie but interactive which makes them more dream-like, flexible and personal. I want to always be actively thinking and reacting, not in a trance.Back to the story. What happens when you wake up from the game? How do you know if you've really woken up? You might still be in the game, it could be tricking you. You might start doing some daily chores or work and then come out of the game later realising that all that time and energy you had spent was wasted on a virtual world.Or later you might be in the real world but fall into game habits. Eventually you might think you're actually in the game. What if something bad or dangerous happens and you ignore it because you think you're playing? Or you casually do something violent because you think there are no consequences? Or you gradually find you *need* a regular fix of violence and one day you can't login to the game?Allegra (Jennifer Jason Leigh) herself seems somewhat addicted to the game she has created. She compares it to the boredom of real life. She often seems drowsy, like her real body is getting weak from spending too much time playing (lying down) rather than living. It may sound trite but if you find real life boring, it's probably you that is boring.The ending is very interesting and ironic. It's funny to reflect on the way the movie itself is like a virtual reality game. The actors are the players and the writer/director is the game designer. It also raises the issue of protest and censorship. Does censoring something really achieve anything? Can you ban something just because you think it's bad for people? Or is that simply presumptuous destruction, is it hypocritical? If a game's popular, does that make it valuable, something that should be left alone? The issue is alive and well in 2015: GTA5 was recently taken off certain shelves in Australia which provoked a (semi-sarcastic) petition for Target to change its name.eXistenZ has an effective and fairly unique tone. Most of the movie is in close-ups, we can't escape the characters or their situations. We're in their minds the whole time. The music is suitably moody, a bit ambiguous but generally ominous. Like slow, slushy oceans of thoughts and unexplored worlds. Cronenberg once again shows off a strange imagination - there's a cute little dragon thing, gross food, a creepy futuristic organic gun and ports at the base of people's spines (similar to The Matrix). The acting is good, we feel what the characters feel but often have no idea of their motivations. We start suspecting everyone.There are interesting similarities to Inception, The Matrix and even The Wizard of Oz. Inception is much more ambitious and emotionally richer. The Matrix is more of an action film with some simple philosophical ideas that aren't really explored properly (they conveniently never question the reality of the world outside The Matrix). eXistenZ is more claustrophobic. We're stuck in the minds of two characters as they play a strange dream-like game which we don't know the rules or purpose of (like in real life). By the end, I was subtly blown away. It's both simpler and more complex than what I had anticipated.

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