eXisTenZ - second time around

[Fearless Freep]

I finished watching eXistenZ for the second time last night and I admit I didn't like it as much as the first time.


For some reason, I seemed to remember the 'what is reality?' feeling being a lot more confusing; I first saw it several years ago so I'd forgotten a lot of it, but I thought it played a lot more with the 'are we in the real world or are we in the game?' confusion a lot more than it really does, until the end.

I was pretty bugged by the 'this is the only copy of the game in my pod and the only way to test it is to play it with someone friendly' angle.  Seems *awfully* contrived a setup to make things happen,  Has nobody heard of backups? I can't think of *any* company that would trust their IP to something so precarious, and a forced situation of diagnosis that is so dangerous.

'Contrived' actually seems an appropriate word. I found myself *really* annoyed that in the game, your game character would be forced to do certain things and say certain things to move the story along; this is little more than a glorified "Choose Yout Own Adventure" story.  As a game, that would really suck.  As a movie, it was hard to really have any feeling for the characters because you sorta felt they were just along for the ride and since they had little or no free will in attempting to survive or figure things out, you didn't feel connected to what they were doing.

And in the end, the surprise twist was not as clever as the movie would hope.  First off, if a movie throws in a twist ending, it should be possible to work it backwards to figure out  'oh yeah, now that makes sense', but their were no real clues and the personalities were so different  that you're left more with a feeling that the writer cheated or copped out for the sake of effect, rather than really thought it through with something clever or intelligent to say



Post Edited (03-01-05 14:31)

[Cheecky-Monkey]

To be honest, the film was a little to dark for my taste. Bur hey that's Cronenberg for ya...I will admit though I loved all the little mutant creatures running around, especially  the two-headed salamander. That thing was awesome.

[Mr_Vindictive]

This is one of those films that I've been wanting to see for years and yet always slip my mind while I'm in the vid store.  How does it hold up against Cronenberg's other works?

[Prophet Tenebrae]

I generally like Cronenberg's work - but  I thought that (like Vanilla Sky) this was too much like a bad Star Trek episode where they get trapped in the holodeck.

[Fearless Freep]

I first saw this one at the same time I saw "Dark City", "The Thirteenth Floor" and maybe a few other movies that messed with the "what is 'reality'?" theme

I still really like "Dark City" it holds up after multiple viewings and 'thinking about it', probably because it doesn't try so hard to hide the secret; it reveals what's really going on *fairly* early to the audience, although slower to some of the characters, so it doesn't rely on that 'suprise' shock of finding it all out to (as an observer) keep the suspense.  I also found it very depressing as I realized that, when all is said and done, their still stuck where they are.

<----  Note: if you haven't seen the movie and want to, you may want to avoid reading further.  I'll try to avoid overt spoilers but I don't want to disuade anyone from seeing the movie and coming up with their own opinions ---->

Anyway, eXistenZ..first a note on the spelling.  On the box, it's spelled eXistenZ and apparently the letters between the capitals, isten, spell out 'god' in some foreign language (which is not a part of the movie but just a trivia point) , but in the movie, one character makes a point that it is spelled 'eXisTenZ, capital X, capital T, capital Z'  

Anyway...on my first viewing, eXistenZ fit in well with the Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor.  eXistenZ uses enough visceral effect to sorta keep your attention and mess with you a bit to keep you moving along in a sorta 'ew...now what?' frame of mind.  I liked the comparison to a bad Star Trek holodeck episode; you really have to be willing to give this one a lot of "I'm not going to think about what's going along and just take it as it comes", because like a bad holodeck episode, it's not quite as clever as it wants to be, or wants us to think it is.

Now, I've watched a lot of movies that are pretty stupid and really require the viewer to just go along with what's going on.  However, this one has pretty good production and cinemtography and *so* wants  to be taken seriously that it's harder to forgive it for being a bit senseless.  Also, it moves at a slow pace, with enough 'icky' moments in it that it's hard to just sit back for the ride and be entertained, because the ride is not that enjoyable.

[Mr. Hockstatter]

I saw it a long time ago and honestly don't remember much about it other than it was nicely photographed.  It seemed like they took a vaguely interesting premise and did absolutely nothing with it.  Just watch the odd pictures go by on the screen, okay, the end.

[dudeman]

I felt the playing around with "hyperreality"/ "brian-in-a-vat" philosophy could have been pulled off better at the end. So, yeah, writers did cop out.  I found it enjoyable but not anything memorable.

[dean]

eXisTenZ is a wierd one, that much is sure, although I don't like the ending as much as I should of.

But that restaurtant scene with the Tooth Gun was very disgusting and very Cronenberg, so for that scene alone, I place this movie in the 'it was entertaining and good' category.

Also did anyone else note the similarities between Videodrome and eXisTenZ with one of the lines that Jude Law [I think it was him, it may have been the girl] says near the end?

Something about Hailing and the flesh etc, which really reminded me of something that James Woods kept crapping on about in Videodrome.  It was just a bit of interesting line choices maybe, but it bugged me nevertheless.

[blkrider]

I didn't care for it for that reason...it seemed like Cronenberg was just revisiting material he'd already covered in VIDEODROME, just with bettef effects and updating the technology.  I haven't seen it since its theatrical release, though so I might think differently of it now, especially after buying the Criterion VIDEODROME.