The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

The Thirteenth Floor has an amazing premise and some great ideas. Shame that it's also mired by terrible dialogue, B-movie plotting, and a cheap looking production. Blending elements of Dark City and The Matrix though never achieving the greatness of either of those magnificent works of sci-fi, I would still recommend The Thirteenth Floor for what it sets out to do. It's also cool to see the younger versions of Gretchen Mol, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Dennis Haysbert.

It's kind of like The Matrix, It is kind of like eXistenZ...only it is also kind of neo noir, and it is far more mystery/thriller...and it...wait, not it's actually a completely different film. Let me start again... It's kind of like Dark City and it's kind of like The Matrix and....no, that really doesn't fit either. It's kind of like a lot of elements in other movies that are kind of like this one. So people are going to see similarities...but it is also going to throw them for a loop and be a lot different than the movies that you can compare it to It's not original, it's just combined enough to be kind of completely original. In fact, forget it, just sit down and watch it yourself, it will entertain you and that was the point of making it.

"Fuller" (Armin Mueller-Stahl) needs to share the news of his ground-breaking discovery with his partner 'Hall" (Craig Bierko) but is wary that he isn't safe. He decides that the best precaution might be to leave a letter for him and deposit it in their computer-generated alter-world. This place wouldn't have looked out of place in a Fritz Lang movie, and when his colleague is, indeed, slain, it falls to "Hall" - now the prime suspect for the crime - to piece together the clues left by his friend and try to identify the true culprit whilst rescuing the innovation from it's simulated home. What I quite enjoyed about this drams is the simplicity with which it juggles it's timelines. We don't have to struggle or concentrate trying to follow the changing environments coming at us from all angles of the screen overpowering what is essentially quite an intriguing crime thriller. Nobody on the screen really stands out, but the ensemble approach along with some quite potent comment on just how dependent we are becoming on technology in our lives is quite effective at keeping the story tight and interesting. The denouement is also a little left field, and all told this is a surprisingly decent attempt at an early multi-verse experience that works quite well.