EXistenZ
From AwardAnnals
| This creative work has a long or truncated description. Please review the creative work guidelines concerning descriptions and edit down or replace the description. |
 | |
| Director(s) | David Cronenberg |
|---|---|
| Distributor | Dimension |
| Honors | |
| Exciting stars Jennifer Jason Leigh (Dolores Claiborne), Jude Law (Gattaca), and Willem Dafoe (Speed 2, Affliction) challenge the boundaries of reality in this futuristic, critically acclaimed adventure thriller! During the first closed-door demonstration of an amazing new virtual reality game called eXistenZ, the system’s brilliant designer, Allegra Geller (Leigh), is violently attacked by a crazed assassin intent on killing her and destroying her creation! Forced to flee into hiding, Allegra enlists a young assistant (Law) to help her in… | |
Exciting stars Jennifer Jason Leigh (Dolores Claiborne), Jude Law (Gattaca), and Willem Dafoe (Speed 2, Affliction) challenge the boundaries of reality in this futuristic, critically acclaimed adventure thriller! During the first closed-door demonstration of an amazing new virtual reality game called eXistenZ, the system’s brilliant designer, Allegra Geller (Leigh), is violently attacked by a crazed assassin intent on killing her and destroying her creation! Forced to flee into hiding, Allegra enlists a young assistant (Law) to help her in testing the damaged system…by convincing him to join her inside eXistenZ! The action then explodes as their world’s real-life dangers begin to merge with the fantasy of the game! If you’re ready to play, it’s now your turn to plug into this powerfully entertaining hit!
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
Director David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ is a stew of corporate espionage, virtual reality gaming, and thriller elements, marinated in Cronenberg’s favorite Crock-Pot juices of technology, physiology, and sexual metaphor. Jennifer Jason Leigh is game designer Allegra Geller, responsible for the new state-of-the-art eXistenZ game system; along with PR newbie Ted Pikul (Jude Law), they take the beta version of the game for a test drive and are immersed in a dangerous alternate reality. The game isn’t quite like PlayStation, though; it’s a latexy pod made from the guts of mutant amphibians and plugs via an umbilical cord directly into the user’s spinal column (through a BioPort). It powers up through the player’s own nervous system and taps into the subconscious; with several players it networks their brains together. Geller and Pikul’s adventures in the game reality uncover more espionage and an antigaming, proreality insurrection. The game world makes it increasingly difficult to discern between reality and the game, either through the game’s perspective or the human’s. More accessible than Crash, eXistenZ is a complicated sci-fi opus, often confusing, and with an ending that leaves itself wide open for a sequel. Fans of Cronenberg’s work will recognize his recurring themes and will eat this up. Others will find its shallow characterizations and near-incomprehensible plot twists a little tedious. —Jerry Renshaw
Barnes and Noble
Director David Cronenberg’s wonderfully warped sci-fi effort, Existenz, follows a legendary virtual reality game designer, Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and Ted Pikal (Jude Law), a lowly marketing trainee at Allegra’s company, as they hide out after an attempt on Allegra’s life. Most of the film takes place inside Allegra’s latest game, a mind-blowing, role-playing wild ride of a game called “eXistenZ,” which plugs directly into the spinal cord to create a strange, dreamlike alternate reality. Leigh is well cast as the introverted virtual reality guru with a cult following, and Law even better as the nervous first-time gamer. But Cronenberg’s unique vision is the star of Existenz, a bizarre world of bone, flesh, and viscera where “eXistenZ” is played using fleshy game “pods” with connections like umbilical cords, and the would-be assassin uses a gun made of slimy bones with human teeth for bullets. Existenz also provides some nice plot twists as the characters—and the audience—begin to lose their ability to distinguish between what’s really happening and what’s just a game. Gregory Baird
