eXistenZ

Rating:
Summary: "eXistenZ"
Review: eXistenZ (R) 5/5
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian Holm, Don McKellar, Willem Dafoe.
Directed by: David Cronenberg.
Synopsis: When a game designer is attacked a young man is sent to protect her and the game she has created. When they go into the game reality bends and they must figure out how much is real and how much is the game.
Special Features: Trailer.
Review: The film starts out with an attempted assassination upon a young talented game designer (Leigh). She is taken away by Jude Law who must protect her. She however is only concerned that the game she spent so long designing is in one piece. She convinces him to play the game with her. Once inside they must figure out the point of the game, but as they enter and exit the game they begin to wonder what is the game and what isn't. This film is brilliantly written, and really requires some thinking. Everything has a unique organic look that sets this film in a class of its own. The acting is top notch. Leigh is fearless, Law is incredible, Ian Holm lends his considerable wealth of talent and charm to the film, and Willem Dafoe's small part is one of the best scenes in the film. David Cronenberg delivers a completely new and original vision and succeeds on every level of directing. As for the DVD? Ugh where is a special edition when you need it. Come on Dimension this film deserves it!

Rating:
Summary: Big Surprise
Review: I was drug to the theater at 12 at night to see this. I never even heard of Cronenberg. Big Surprise, I was into this thing start to finish. I thought the Matrix was horrible and after I saw this I thought, "now thats a real story." ... If you watch this you'll see how unpredictable everything turns out. Jude Law is excellent in this. If you liked him in AI you'll see but another great execution by him. The chinese resturaunt scene is hilarious. Classic! This movie is great and will be your little secret since not to many people have even heard of it.
4 stars because I hear the Canadien version has bonus material. Theres none on the US version.

Rating:
Summary: This one's real trippy
Review: Alright so this movie isn't the greatest thing to come around but it definetly doesn't blow. If you read the summary you'd see that this movie is weird.Not so much the actual storyline but the odd things that happen without any real expalnation. There the gaming pods, weird slimey egg sack things that cry like babies when you touch them. The mutant repitles they talk about and show swimming in the pond casually. Which are fished out and eaten.The gun made out of body parts, the erie characters at the chinese food restuarant, the sudden impulses the characters get to jump up yell "existenz!" and pass out. Probably whoever thought up these weird parts was probably blazed,and thats how its probably ment to be watched.With so much weird stuff tho, the storyline is pretty basic,and easy to follow.With the exception of unexplained happenings.

Rating:
Summary: A Smarter Version of The Matrix
Review: This is a great and virtually unknown film about virtual reality gaming and what happens when the game is so real that you can't tell the game from reality. Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh do a great job here, and the script is really well written and complex. This isn't quite the shocking experience we got from David Cronenberg's Videodrome, but this is not really a horror film. Plus, eXistenZ is almost a remake of Videodrome.

There are two North American versions of the DVD. The one I got is the Canadian Special Edition which has an almost hour-long featurette and three commentary tracks....... whereas the American (Dimension) version has basically nothing. It is rumored also that the Canadian version has better picture and sound since the disc is dual layered and sampled at a higher rate than the single layered American version. The Canadian version is easily attainable online, and you won't regret spending the extra money because it is clearly a far better DVD than the Dimension version.

Rating:
Summary: Oh dear. Not really up to much.
Review: Well, for a start it's nothing like The Matrix. eXistenZ is in my opinion one of davids weakest movies. He's trying to do a flash virtual-reality, cyberspace, <insert fave cyber word here> movie, but it just doesn't work. The acting is average at best, but you get the impression it's not the actors fault (read: bad script). The problem is this: The movie makes little sense, the plot jumps around all over the place, and there are gooey, bio, odd looking things all through it (which is of course one of cronenbergs trademarks). Very low budget stuff, and as one person said earlier, it's clear that cronenberg knows nothing about computers (ie. ever heard of backing up your precious data!! I really have no idea what he was actually trying to do with this one (oh and it has no real special effects, just lot's of 1970's gore and goo effects instead).

There is better stuff out there by far. Try Brazil, or Dark City for much better sci-fi, or Mulholland Drive for more weirdness.

High point of the movie: Jennifer Jason Leigh (she has great legs)

Low point of the movie: the bio-pods are just sad......

Rating:
Summary: Awsome Stuff.
Review: At first, alot of people really gave this movie a bad review. It came out the same time The Matrix did, but eXistenZ was not mainstream. I picked this movie up from the video store and I loved it. This movie will be well liked by gamers and such. It has a nice polt twist throughout the whole movie. Kinda wierd, but fun.

Rating:
Summary: and then they didn't wake up
Review: Almost a three. I remember Roger Ebert saying this was better than "The Matrix". Takes a cheap spin on the old "and then they woke up" ending.
note: I'm aware of what the ending implies, but it's not that original of an idea, believe it or not Mark Twain wrote something similar in "No. 44 The Mysterious Stranger", therefore I think the Matrix was more original. I also don't like the game idea because it implies there's a human like creator, and a winner. So I say if all these people are allowed to say their views on reality, I'll say one of mine. In western music the scale is divided into 12 notes(chromatic scale) if you play these notes from top to bottom they sound like nothing. "Which ones are the good notes which are the bad?" None of them. It's not until you divide the notes in a way to form a reference point, for example the C major scale(cdefgabc). Starting from C it sounds all happy but if you start from the next note up, d, it will sound dark. These are called the modes, there's 7 of them in the major scale. So I'm saying it's not until there's a reference point that things can be distinguished, so therefore being human is a reference point. I also like the existing yet not existing quality of music, and the same song can be played on many places of the world at the same time, and there isn't really a human like creator nor is there a winner.

Rating:
Summary: keeps you guessing
Review: This was a great movie for anyone in that sci-fi genre that enjoys movies which help you to escape from reality. It moves at an appropriate speed and actually goes by like no time has passed, so you just want to watch it again. You don't need to read through some long review to know that it's good. And the ending is the best that it could be, because it always keeps you guessing.

Rating:
Summary: eXinstenZ Elsewhere
Review: Once again, David Cronenberg proves he SHOULD quit his day job with EXISTENZ, a film so poorly conceived, so wretchedly predictably, and blatantly unintelligent that it deserves to be locked away in a vault never to be seen or heard from again.

To try to define the story here would give away the entire premise of the move ... but I will say that the film dabbles heavily in computer gaming, virtual reality, and illogical plot twists ... enough to require a couple of Dramamine. The principles, Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh, do their part try to elevate the flat material, but it just doesn't work.

For fans of Cronenberg's work, EXISTENZ is filled with visions of his weird gadgets and plenty of gore ... including a futuristic living game console, complete with nipples that serve as on/off buttons.

The beautiful Jennifer Jason Leigh continues to hold the title, in my humble opinion, of one of the most beautiful women to grace the silver screen. She brings a sensuality to her role here that perhaps the script called for (it is a Cronenberg film, after all), but rather succumbing to the Sharon Stone School of Screen Sirens Ms. Leigh gives depth to her feminine wiles by attaching them very closely to her character's career ... a game designer of futuristic titles ... or is she?

Rating:
Summary: Get the Canadian Version!
Review: While nowhere near the level of "Crash" or "Dead Ringers," even middling efforts by this director tend to bear repeat viewing. One unqualified masterwork a decade is way better than we can expect from most people, anyway. This one ranks about with "Naked Lunch."

Jennifer Jason Leigh has been a blight on everything I've seen her in since she started taking acting lessons - or whatever happned to her. She's not bad here though, which is to say she doesn't cripple the film.

Basically the set-up is the same as "The Matrix" or "Tron," But those were really terrible movies. This one isn't a GREAT movie - but there IS a movie here, as opposed to a lot of sound and fury signifying creative and intellectual bankruptcy. One worth seeing too, if only for the weirdly sexy interactive machinery, playful layers of non-reality and some juicy supporting performances. The willfully un-slick production design is quite nice, also.