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The Thirteenth Floor
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
If I... stab you... do you promise to die?
You know that one plothole in Matrix Reloaded? You know, the really big one? The one so big you gotta be blind not to see it? So blind that your ability to fairly assess narratives goes entirely to **** if you fail to recognize it?
Yeah, that one.
I'm sure the smart alecs among you are pretty proud of yourselves for having "solved" this scene, "It's just Inception, Omni, it's a Matrix within a Matrix".
Congratulations numbnuts, you just put more thought into the movie than the writers were willing to because your theory is thoroughly ignored throughout the rest of the movie and it's sequel. There's no spinning top this time, folks, no lampshade to hang, no subtlety to unmask, this was a plotbeat with an immediately obvious payoff that never pays off. This is worse than a Sad Chekov, this Deus Ex Machina at it's worst. BOOM, unexplained superpowers, the day is saved.
Now that's pretty bad, but what if I told you that this exact same reveal was performed successfully already 4 YEARS EARLIER?
The Thirteenth Floor is that movie.
The Thirteenth Floor, despite shooting itself in the thigh at the midway point and failing to keep it's mouth shut the second time when the audience can figure the implications of a given scene, does what the The Matrix failed to do by introducing us to simulation, taking us out of that simulation, and then revealing that that too is a simulation.
The rules concerning the simulation in the movie are consistent which is the most important thing this movie needed to get right and it does that to a T, people temporarily inhabit the bodies of AI inhabiting the system and if they die in the system, they're ejected and the AI assumes their real bodies.
There's a missed opportunity to really talk about the ethics of dealing with sentient AI, but that moment when all of the disparate mysteries culminate in a single person in the real world affecting that bi-polar amnesia that has become a gradually established symptom of body occupance only to lead wordlessly to Main Guy mimicking Mr. Bartender's description of the letter and driving off the game map makes for a fantastic twist to the story and really just leaves movies like Matrix Reloaded looking like a whipped bitch by comparison.
WHAT? You couldn't have NOT known better, you just didn't want to alienate your dudebro viewers with more skeptic talk even though that's one of the only things that keeps your movie relevant today.
Now granted, Thirteenth Floor lacks the stylish action, the biopunk aesthetic, and the cyberpocalyptic setting that plays out in Matrix's corner. It's also far weaker when it comes to the dialog and performances, you'll get nothing on the level of Mr. Smith as much as Mr. Smith would probably improve any given movie he appeared in.
Even admitting that though, this was a nice tight little thriller. Not as deep and insightful as something like Looker and not as memorable as The Matrix, but as a demonstration of the skeptically-charged premise, it's a fair recommendation.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]
The Thirteenth Floor
Sci-Fi Thriller / English / 1999
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
For the Sci-Fi Movie Countdown.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Originally Posted by CosmicRunaway
I've had The Black Hole on DVD for many years now, but I've never gotten around to watching it. I think I've seen The Thirteen Floor, but I don't remember anything about it. I think The Thirteenth Floor is supposed to be the better film though, so it might be a decent choice.
"They say that deja vu is usually a sign of love-at-first-sight." *smooch*
If I... stab you... do you promise to die?
You know that one plothole in Matrix Reloaded? You know, the really big one? The one so big you gotta be blind not to see it? So blind that your ability to fairly assess narratives goes entirely to **** if you fail to recognize it?
Yeah, that one.
I'm sure the smart alecs among you are pretty proud of yourselves for having "solved" this scene, "It's just Inception, Omni, it's a Matrix within a Matrix".
Congratulations numbnuts, you just put more thought into the movie than the writers were willing to because your theory is thoroughly ignored throughout the rest of the movie and it's sequel. There's no spinning top this time, folks, no lampshade to hang, no subtlety to unmask, this was a plotbeat with an immediately obvious payoff that never pays off. This is worse than a Sad Chekov, this Deus Ex Machina at it's worst. BOOM, unexplained superpowers, the day is saved.
Now that's pretty bad, but what if I told you that this exact same reveal was performed successfully already 4 YEARS EARLIER?
The Thirteenth Floor is that movie.
The Thirteenth Floor, despite shooting itself in the thigh at the midway point and failing to keep it's mouth shut the second time when the audience can figure the implications of a given scene, does what the The Matrix failed to do by introducing us to simulation, taking us out of that simulation, and then revealing that that too is a simulation.
The rules concerning the simulation in the movie are consistent which is the most important thing this movie needed to get right and it does that to a T, people temporarily inhabit the bodies of AI inhabiting the system and if they die in the system, they're ejected and the AI assumes their real bodies.
There's a missed opportunity to really talk about the ethics of dealing with sentient AI, but that moment when all of the disparate mysteries culminate in a single person in the real world affecting that bi-polar amnesia that has become a gradually established symptom of body occupance only to lead wordlessly to Main Guy mimicking Mr. Bartender's description of the letter and driving off the game map makes for a fantastic twist to the story and really just leaves movies like Matrix Reloaded looking like a whipped bitch by comparison.
WHAT? You couldn't have NOT known better, you just didn't want to alienate your dudebro viewers with more skeptic talk even though that's one of the only things that keeps your movie relevant today.
Now granted, Thirteenth Floor lacks the stylish action, the biopunk aesthetic, and the cyberpocalyptic setting that plays out in Matrix's corner. It's also far weaker when it comes to the dialog and performances, you'll get nothing on the level of Mr. Smith as much as Mr. Smith would probably improve any given movie he appeared in.
Even admitting that though, this was a nice tight little thriller. Not as deep and insightful as something like Looker and not as memorable as The Matrix, but as a demonstration of the skeptically-charged premise, it's a fair recommendation.