Re: CX Reviews
Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 9:17 pm
The Thirteenth Floor
(1999 movie)
Much like Dark City, this is yet another high concept existentialist sci-fi movie that got overshadowed by The Matrix by virtue of being released the same year. To be fair, though, it really isn't as "high concept" per say as either The Matrix or Dark City, mostly owing to how it approached it main concept compared to those other movies.
Like The Matrix and Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor follows a single white male protagonist as he attempts to unravel a growing mystery about both himself and the world around him. In this case, the protagonist is Douglas Hall, the wealthy second-in-command to a billion-dollar computer company that is currently messing around with an immersive simulated world based on 1937 Los Angeles. Much like Dark City, the protagonist has to discover the answers he's looking for while under suspicion of murder, though he isn't being hunted by police, he's just under suspicion with all evidence implicating him in the murder of his own boss, Hannon Fuller. The mystery mainly comes from the events leading up to Hannon's murder, because for some unknown reason, he left a message for Doug in the simulated 1937 Los Angeles in the form of a written note. Naturally, Doug goes on a mission to find this note, only the bartender who was supposed to give it to him not only read it right after Hannon gave it to him, but elected to not give it to Doug. Things get more complicated as Hannon's daughter shows up, or so it seems, and Doug finds himself going back to the simulation for answers, which he eventually finds.
It's a fairly straightforward plot with a mystery that builds and takes a few turns here and there that managed to keep me interested enough to watch. Aside from the movie poster artwork giving the big twist away, it actually isn't all that hard to figure out, which is actually the least disappointing flaw this movie has, mainly because it's outstripped by much larger flaws that I'll get into later. Still, up until the big plot twist was revealed, hints were left here and there that the viewer could use to figure things out for themselves.
The Matrix is having a slight rendering error...
Yeah, that's the big plot twist. As it turns out, the 1937 simulation was actually a simulation within a simulation, which Doug is himself a part of. As I said earlier, the crazy bartender Hannon left the note with read it and because of this learned that he was nothing more than a character living out his artificial life in a computer simulation. Unfortunately, someone apparently thought the audience needed the fact that Doug's late '90s LA was actually the simulated environment Hannon was talking about, and he was killed to preserve that secret, though it's not entirely clear to me why this had to be done or why the people behind it were actually behind it. Unfortunately, this is hardly the biggest flaw or the most insulting thing about this movie.
There are two main major flaws to the plot that I just can't get past. The first one involves one of Doug's colleagues working on the simulation going into the simulated world for no discernable reason, other than to set up the sickeningly Hollywood Happy Ending™ that was practically tied up with a neat little pink bow. While it's briefly mentioned the first time Doug enters the simulation that it is possible for users to somehow switch places with their 1937 simulated counterparts, someone apparently decided that this wasn't enough and that they actually had to show it happen. The actual brain transfer thing makes slightly more sense in light of the knowledge that Doug and his world is also a computer simulation. Also, conveniently, the computer simulations have physical counterparts who look exactly like them. In any case, the main brain fart here is that this software engineer who ends up dying and thus switching places with his 1937 counterpart already knew that his counterpart was a crazy murderer, who had actually been in the process of murdering Doug's 1937 counterpart when he came upon the situation and managed to pull Doug out of the simulation. So, despite knowing this, he enters the simulation, which just doesn't make any sense at all given the context. In the end, this only functions to show that the suppressed simulated "soul" of the simulated character would take the place of the person who had taken over their body back in the real world.
The other major flaw has to do with Hannon's murder and the people who were involved in it. As it happened, the one who killed Hannon was Doug's counterpart in the really real world of 2024 LA. This would have made slightly more sense in the context of these people being actual counterparts to Hannon and Doug, as in they were scientists dealing with a bug in their simulation. What then made this odd was the viciousness of the murder itself, because scientists should not do that, even if they were convinced that killing a simulated character was necessary so that the system did not become self aware. Unfortunately, the end of the movie revealed that these weren't scientists, or if they were, they were literally plugging into the system at home instead of some lab. Worse, though, was the reveal that what made the violent murders so unusual was that in the far off future of 2024, crime has all but been eliminated, to the point that LA county was thinking of closing its prison. The implication here is that the simulation caused the big bad to go nuts and enjoy killing people, to the point that he tried to kill his own wife while she was in the 1990s simulation. I honestly can't roll my eyes enough at that suggestion, but I the "happy" ending was so cute that I nearly threw up, so they kind of canceled each other out.
Oh, the big "happy" ending? The Big Bad was killed by Detective President Palmer, who was really quickly made aware of the fact that he was a simulation, and not only believed it but was really understanding of what the mysterious "daughter" of Hannon had planned. The entire point of this plan was to make it so that Doug's digital soul ended up in the body of the movie's main antagonist in the really real world of 2024 LA, because as it turned out, Gretchen Mol was in love with him and was totally cheating on her psycho killer husband with him. I guess I wasn't supposed to notice that the simulated yet sentient computer character whose body she was inhabiting was technically getting raped in the process.
I wanted to like this movie more, but despite a strong start, the resolution of the movie ultimately disgusted me to the point that I just couldn't. The more I think about it, though, while the story was ultimately trying to make its audience question existence in almost the same way that The Matrix did, instead I end up asking questions about the simulations themselves. Questions like, why are people only able to enter the simulations by taking over the bodies of existing characters who just happen to look exactly like them rather than having a new simulated body simulated for them? Aside from being really messed up, wouldn't that make it pretty easy for everyone else around them to figure out what's going on? Wouldn't it make more sense to show up as random rich people so that people could more fully experience the depression era in a manner that didn't suck and didn't make the sentient characters at risk of losing their jobs because they randomly wander off in the middle of their jobs? What would be so great about wandering around as a common person with limited means of getting around anyway?
Okay, while I'm picking the hell out of this movie, I will say that it's not exactly what I would consider a bad movie, either, because it isn't nearly as insulting as say Avatar is, or as stupid as the live action Transformers movies. I may be damning this movie with faint praise, but really it's worth checking out, if nothing else so you can see a contemporary to Dark City and The Matrix. Something else you may want to check out that has a similar theme is the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Ship in a Bottle". It makes up for insulting with ham-fisted, but overall it's still an improvement over this movie. 6/10.
(1999 movie)
Much like Dark City, this is yet another high concept existentialist sci-fi movie that got overshadowed by The Matrix by virtue of being released the same year. To be fair, though, it really isn't as "high concept" per say as either The Matrix or Dark City, mostly owing to how it approached it main concept compared to those other movies.
Like The Matrix and Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor follows a single white male protagonist as he attempts to unravel a growing mystery about both himself and the world around him. In this case, the protagonist is Douglas Hall, the wealthy second-in-command to a billion-dollar computer company that is currently messing around with an immersive simulated world based on 1937 Los Angeles. Much like Dark City, the protagonist has to discover the answers he's looking for while under suspicion of murder, though he isn't being hunted by police, he's just under suspicion with all evidence implicating him in the murder of his own boss, Hannon Fuller. The mystery mainly comes from the events leading up to Hannon's murder, because for some unknown reason, he left a message for Doug in the simulated 1937 Los Angeles in the form of a written note. Naturally, Doug goes on a mission to find this note, only the bartender who was supposed to give it to him not only read it right after Hannon gave it to him, but elected to not give it to Doug. Things get more complicated as Hannon's daughter shows up, or so it seems, and Doug finds himself going back to the simulation for answers, which he eventually finds.
It's a fairly straightforward plot with a mystery that builds and takes a few turns here and there that managed to keep me interested enough to watch. Aside from the movie poster artwork giving the big twist away, it actually isn't all that hard to figure out, which is actually the least disappointing flaw this movie has, mainly because it's outstripped by much larger flaws that I'll get into later. Still, up until the big plot twist was revealed, hints were left here and there that the viewer could use to figure things out for themselves.
The Matrix is having a slight rendering error...
Yeah, that's the big plot twist. As it turns out, the 1937 simulation was actually a simulation within a simulation, which Doug is himself a part of. As I said earlier, the crazy bartender Hannon left the note with read it and because of this learned that he was nothing more than a character living out his artificial life in a computer simulation. Unfortunately, someone apparently thought the audience needed the fact that Doug's late '90s LA was actually the simulated environment Hannon was talking about, and he was killed to preserve that secret, though it's not entirely clear to me why this had to be done or why the people behind it were actually behind it. Unfortunately, this is hardly the biggest flaw or the most insulting thing about this movie.
There are two main major flaws to the plot that I just can't get past. The first one involves one of Doug's colleagues working on the simulation going into the simulated world for no discernable reason, other than to set up the sickeningly Hollywood Happy Ending™ that was practically tied up with a neat little pink bow. While it's briefly mentioned the first time Doug enters the simulation that it is possible for users to somehow switch places with their 1937 simulated counterparts, someone apparently decided that this wasn't enough and that they actually had to show it happen. The actual brain transfer thing makes slightly more sense in light of the knowledge that Doug and his world is also a computer simulation. Also, conveniently, the computer simulations have physical counterparts who look exactly like them. In any case, the main brain fart here is that this software engineer who ends up dying and thus switching places with his 1937 counterpart already knew that his counterpart was a crazy murderer, who had actually been in the process of murdering Doug's 1937 counterpart when he came upon the situation and managed to pull Doug out of the simulation. So, despite knowing this, he enters the simulation, which just doesn't make any sense at all given the context. In the end, this only functions to show that the suppressed simulated "soul" of the simulated character would take the place of the person who had taken over their body back in the real world.
The other major flaw has to do with Hannon's murder and the people who were involved in it. As it happened, the one who killed Hannon was Doug's counterpart in the really real world of 2024 LA. This would have made slightly more sense in the context of these people being actual counterparts to Hannon and Doug, as in they were scientists dealing with a bug in their simulation. What then made this odd was the viciousness of the murder itself, because scientists should not do that, even if they were convinced that killing a simulated character was necessary so that the system did not become self aware. Unfortunately, the end of the movie revealed that these weren't scientists, or if they were, they were literally plugging into the system at home instead of some lab. Worse, though, was the reveal that what made the violent murders so unusual was that in the far off future of 2024, crime has all but been eliminated, to the point that LA county was thinking of closing its prison. The implication here is that the simulation caused the big bad to go nuts and enjoy killing people, to the point that he tried to kill his own wife while she was in the 1990s simulation. I honestly can't roll my eyes enough at that suggestion, but I the "happy" ending was so cute that I nearly threw up, so they kind of canceled each other out.
Oh, the big "happy" ending? The Big Bad was killed by Detective President Palmer, who was really quickly made aware of the fact that he was a simulation, and not only believed it but was really understanding of what the mysterious "daughter" of Hannon had planned. The entire point of this plan was to make it so that Doug's digital soul ended up in the body of the movie's main antagonist in the really real world of 2024 LA, because as it turned out, Gretchen Mol was in love with him and was totally cheating on her psycho killer husband with him. I guess I wasn't supposed to notice that the simulated yet sentient computer character whose body she was inhabiting was technically getting raped in the process.
I wanted to like this movie more, but despite a strong start, the resolution of the movie ultimately disgusted me to the point that I just couldn't. The more I think about it, though, while the story was ultimately trying to make its audience question existence in almost the same way that The Matrix did, instead I end up asking questions about the simulations themselves. Questions like, why are people only able to enter the simulations by taking over the bodies of existing characters who just happen to look exactly like them rather than having a new simulated body simulated for them? Aside from being really messed up, wouldn't that make it pretty easy for everyone else around them to figure out what's going on? Wouldn't it make more sense to show up as random rich people so that people could more fully experience the depression era in a manner that didn't suck and didn't make the sentient characters at risk of losing their jobs because they randomly wander off in the middle of their jobs? What would be so great about wandering around as a common person with limited means of getting around anyway?
Okay, while I'm picking the hell out of this movie, I will say that it's not exactly what I would consider a bad movie, either, because it isn't nearly as insulting as say Avatar is, or as stupid as the live action Transformers movies. I may be damning this movie with faint praise, but really it's worth checking out, if nothing else so you can see a contemporary to Dark City and The Matrix. Something else you may want to check out that has a similar theme is the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Ship in a Bottle". It makes up for insulting with ham-fisted, but overall it's still an improvement over this movie. 6/10.