Movie Notes: eXistenZ

March 8th, 2008

= 4 stars

Starring Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Willem Defoe
Directed by David Cronenberg

Synopsis

In the “near future,” game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is nearly assassinated while testing her new game, eXistenZ. She runs for her life with the help of Ted Pikul (Jude Law) a marketing guy who doesn’t play video games.

The Good

• The film is surprisingly prescient regarding the immersive — and addictive — nature of virtual reality.
• It has an amusing take on the oft-predicted “jack plug to the brain” future technology.
• Jennifer Jason Leigh (as usual) totally lives and breathes her character, and Jude Law shows a sort of futuristic, icy seriousness that likely led to his casting in Gattaca and AI.

The Bad

• The “twistish” ending was rather annoying.
• Cronenberg is certainly a cult-horror-sci-fi director with a unique, brain-screwing, surreal style. I can’t say I’m a huge fan.

Conclusion

Because eXistenZ is about video games, I enjoyed it more than say, Naked Lunch. Even its shaky bits could be explained plot-wise as imagined by game developers.

eXistenZ also comments on technology addiction. Today, nearly ten years after the film was made, people contemplate addiction to the Internet and numerous electronic devices. Surely there will come a time when reality and a digital fantasy bleed together and become inseparable. I’m sadly certain many will prefer this virtual world where anything is possible.

Ultimately, I think the film’s message comes home when a murder takes place in a room full of zombie-like people, brains friend by too many video games and staring at hand-held computers. Never mind the mutated amphibian guts or the organic, throbbing nipple controllers — that moment of moral confusion is seriously disturbing.

IMDB: eXistenZ
Wikipedia: eXistenZ
Rotten Tomatoes: eXistenZ 73%