THIRTEENTH FLOOR

REVIEWED BY BRETT WILLIS

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: strong profanity and violence

Rated:

One of several 1999 movies with virtual-reality themes, this film suffered by comparison to—for example—the big-budget splashiness of The Matrix. But personally I prefer it over The Matrix because, although all films of this type basically cut God out of the picture and make man and/or technology into a substitute Creator-God, at least The Thirteenth Floor isn’t packed with pseudo-Christian symbolism. I also think it’s much better than eXistenZ.

In the present day (1999), a group of computer researchers has created a virtual world (Los Angeles, circa 1937) of fully-interacting people. And it’s possible to enter this simulation by taking over the “mind” of one of the computer characters. While inside the simulation, it seems just as real to the player as his “real” world does. But something has gone wrong. The boss of the project, Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl) has discovered a secret that he says someone will try to silence him over. Sure enough: he’s stabbed to death that very night, but not before leaving his colleague Doug Hall (Craig Bierko) a message about the secret—inside the simulation! Entering the simulation through his computer character (bank teller John Ferguson), Hall is amazed by the realism. But his primary concern is finding where Fuller left the message. Fuller has been a naughty boy in the simulation, using his character Grierson to have sex with young girls. 

Was the message left with one of them? Nope, it was left with the sleazy bartender Jerry Ashton, who’s the simulation character of the project’s computer whiz Jason Whitney (Vincent D’Onofrio). Ashton has read the message, and he’s not happy. Meanwhile, back in the 1999 world, the situation is complicated by a nosy detective (Dennis Haysbert) and by the arrival of Fuller’s daughter Jane (Gretchen Mol) with orders to shut the project down.

Anything more I say here would be a major spoiler. Much of the film’s power lies in what is revealed when. There are clues, but I doubt that anyone watching this “cold” will fully anticipate the ending. The atmosphere and costuming of the 1937 sequences is very impressive. All the major cast except Haysbert must play multiple characters in alternate worlds, and they do so excellently. D’Onofrio (Impostor, Men in Black, The Cell, TV’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”) especially stands out as creating two characters who are similar, yet very different in personality traits and mannerisms.

There are a couple of murders by gunfire and one by stabbing, and one violent but accidental death. Also some intense hand-to-hand fighting. No on-screen sex, but there are a few scenes with bare-backed women in bed, implying sex has occurred. There’s one scene suggesting attempted rape but the man only gets as far as shoving the woman down before she brains him with the nearest heavy object. There are twelve occurrences of the f-word, six of sh*t, and about ten other profanities. Almost all the language occurs during fights and arguments, leaving most of the film profanity-free.

The film’s theme is whether we can trust our senses that what we’re experiencing is real. When some of the characters discover that they aren’t what they think they are, they understandably become quite upset since their whole reason for existence is called into question. One interesting twist is what happens when a simulation character “dies” while occupied by his player (no, I won’t tell). Recommended for adult viewers who enjoy the diversion of having their heads messed with, and who can clearly keep in mind that this is only a story.

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