Rating: 
Summary: Too good not to watch.
Review: When I was offered to see the film. I thought that it would be a disaster - medium budget, unknown actors etc. But i was really glad that I watched it. There is only one word - COOL. do not hesitate, just buy and enjoy!!
Rating:
Summary: "Gods Don't Die...WE die!" -- "Final Destination"
Review: There is more than just a connection between a quote of dialogue between these two films. Someone out there is saying something...profound...but cleverly hidden.But if they say it long enough, and cleverly enough, and with enough intrigue and head/brain scratching provocation, people may begin to catch on. The frame plot seems to be about a virtual reality program (hello, "eXistenZ"!) ...which allows individuals from one level of reality (the one which we as viewers assume is our own level of reality) to download into the virtual reality of 1930's Los Angeles. Now why anyone would want to go to 1930s Los Angeles is another question...but the visuals here are stunning...and you DO want to go there...and back again...the whole 1930s atmosphere of hotel showroom, swoony female singer, backup band, bartenders with sexy smiles and insidious intents...leads the viewer down the concrete (rather than yellow-brick) road to face the ultimate REALITY...and shocking answer...there is murder and mayhem... and too much foul-language (which really gets in the way) ... and just when you think you have finally got a handle on what it is all about...they take your head off by taking you up another level! There may be another link here, too, with "The Game" -- the same actor who plays the older gentleman with a fondness for 1930s hotel women plays an elderly book publisher who is being fired from his job in "The Game" (if "The Game" isn't life -- or "existenz" as we know it--or the reality we think we are a part of and living in, then what is it?). The REAL question is -- which film has the best presentation of this hidden puzzle -- "Dark City," "The Thirteenth Floor," or "eXistenZ"? My personal preference is in the order presented in this question. BUY IT! WATCH IT! FIGURE IT OUT!! Your life may depend on it!!
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good
Review: Not the best movie, but it still wasnt bad, good to watch once, but not something you watch over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: Matrixy.....
Review: There is not much I can say about this movie, other than I think it is a great film! I've watched too many movies of this genre to say that Iwas really surprised by too much, but that doesn't mean that it didn't interest me....
Rating:
Summary: What Is Real?
Review: Not the best "What Is Real" movie, but interesting. If you don't like dark movies or science fiction, then this may not hold your attention. Not as well executed as Matrix, doesn't pose the questions that The Truman Show does about the nature of human existence, not as troubling as Dark City. Still, mostly satisfactory. Unfortunately, the plot twist becomes quite obvious well before the final "Aha" moment. Well enough foreshadowed that anybody who's survived eighth grade may well see it coming. Still, sufficiently satisfying to be worth watching. If you enjoy this movie, you may also enjoy Jack Chalker's Wonderland Gambit series, starting with The Cybernetic Walrus. While reading that book, I kept thinking of this movie--not that the scenes are similar, but the concepts start out close ... Five stars for visuals, three stars for making it too obvious where it's going to end, four for the plot.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely one of my all time favorites.
Review: This movie has it all. Riveting plot, sharp editing, fantastic soundtrack, good acting, absolutely gorgeous photography, and special effects that are so good that you don't realize that they are special effects (the recreation of 1937 Los Angeles). There have been comparisons to The Matrix...The Matrix was all special effects and little else. This movie grabs your heart and soul and takes it for a very thought-provoking ride. It is NOT a rip-off of the Matrix, since it is based on a novel written many years ago, and was in production long before the Matrix was released. Absolutely one of my all time favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Breath-taking!!
Review: I rented this film anyway because I'm a huge fan of the lead actor, Craig Bierko. This film was so great! Mr. Bierko did a wonderful job and the plot was mind blowing. After you watch it you really have to sit and let it all sink in because they jam so much in this film. It's got a good chunk of gore. Sex is minimal and profanity is heavy. I didn't find the end predictable at all. I think it was the perfect way to end the film. Although they should have dated the end later that 2024! Gretchen Mols performance grows on you (Watch her reaction the first time she sees Bierko's character. It makes sense later.) but, Craig Bierko is unbelievable! His eyes tell you everything he feels and thinks. From 1 - 10 I give his performance a 11. From 1 - 10 I give the over-all movie a 9 1/2. Rent it!
Rating:
Summary: Very good movie, but not The Matrix
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed The Thirteenth Floor as a movie, but I should probably warn people who hear that it's "like The Matrix" that the similarities end after the basic concept of having a completely immersive virtual world. Fortunately for TTF, this is a very good thing. Where The Matrix took a relatively good concept for a movie and threw special effects at it, TTF took a similar premise and chose to do more in terms of development. Indeed, special effects in this movie are fairly minimal, with far greater effort and detail going into modeling 1940s Los Angeles than camera tricks. The plot is summarized in several other reviews, so I'll simply add my own comments. The movie has a fairly somber tone and a methodical pace. You'll probably see most of the developments well before they're revealed. However, I consider it a fallacy to believe that predictability is necessarily a bad thing. In the case of TTF, it springs from a very thoroughly fleshed out plot, which is a a nice contrast from random plot twists that are not uncommon in sci-fi movies. Comparisons between The Matrix and eXistenZ seem to occur a lot with this movie, but while they do all share a common basic concept, they're really very different movies. eXistenZ is really more oriented towards the idea of an immersive virtual reality as a game, and The Matrix towards that idea as a method of oppression, but The Thirteenth Floor really takes the idea and tries to really establish a solid story with human drama that might occur given this technology/universe.
Rating:
Summary: Profound movie on many levels
Review: I hope I can write this review to recommend "The Thirteenth Floor" without giving the story away completely. Movies about alternate time tracks and realities have strangely become quite popular in the past couple of years, though science fiction writers have written about parallel worlds since at least the 1930's. I once wrote a term paper for a science fiction class on this subject and enjoyed the reading immensely! My favorite author in this genre was the late Phillip K. Dick. Two of his novels about parallel worlds were "The Man In The High Castle Castle" and "Ubik." Ironically Dick achieved some overdue fame as he was dying in 1982 when Hollywood released the well-done "Blade Runner," based on one of his future-world novels. Developments in 20th century science have proven that time is in a sense an illusion, which parallels Eastern mysticism quite well. It is proveable that also in a sense events in the past, present, and future are going on at the same time. The fine, highly readable book, "Parallel Universes," by Fred Alan Wolf, uses quantum physics to prove that in fact the future influences the present. While I feel that we should stay grounded in our present reality, it's also good for mind expansion to ponder the illusions of life. "The Thirteenth Floor" is the best movie I've seen that shows that time is an illusion, and offers questions and metaphors for various mysteries of existence, such as time, and "who am I." "The Thirteenth Floor" is ostensibly about a company that uses computers to travel to the past, to a simulated alternate reality, where the main characters play roles similar or different to their roles in what the movie portrays as "present" time. The computer program that creates the alternate world actually downloads the personality of the character in present time to the past reality, and there is a strange merger of personalities, the inner world of the human, vs. the outer world he lives in. Unfortunately there is a certain amount of violence in TTF, and in fact the murder of one of the scientists who created the world-generating computers is ostensibly the "real" mystery that drives the action. Yet from the beginning the mysteries of what is the "real" world, who are the "real" characters, combined with appropriate music and darkness in every scene until the last one, create many levels of mystery and intrigue. As the truth of what is really going on, which is the "real" world, is revealed to the protagonists, the illusion of what we think of as reality actually deepens! Again, I saw this realization of the illusion of reality to be an excellent metaphor for what is called "maya" in Eastern mysticism. The fact that computers (science) are the reality-generators is ironic to say the least! Unlike "The Matrix," which features a very dreary "real" world behind the more pleasant reality we live in, "The Thirteenth Floor" ends in a message of hope, as the "real" reality turns out to be a very positive future. I've read some reviews about the poor acting in the movie, and I strongly beg to differ. The 4 or 5 main actors do an outstanding job with a very abstract script. Except for the police detective all the main characters play different roles/aspects of the same character very well. I also became a (big) fan of the beautiful Gretchen Mol, whom I had never seen in a movie previously.
Rating:
Summary: Mindstorming
Review: This movie has taken me by surprise. It's a kind of mix between Matrix and Dark City, but in many ways it undoubtly appears superior to them because of its high cleverness and its successful eerie atmosphere. Especially the recreation of 30's Los Angeles is breathtaking. I don't understand what people mean by poor direction and actors, because I found this film to have excellent acting performance and a very smooth and appropriate direction. This very smart film deserves the same cult-status as Dark City, at the very least. Future will prove me right.
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