rgibson103

In summary: a woman in a cyberpunk future plays an illegal - and potentially deadly - MMORPG to get cash in real life. She's lost a partner already - you die in the game, your brain crashes. Since she's so good at it, she finds out there's a level beyond the hardest, and must chase another man into it at the moderators' request.

It's an Oshii film, so you know there's the obligatory basset hound in it. I think the sepia monochrome of "reality prime" was inspired by the black and white outside of the zone in Tarkovsky's STALKER. The game itself will satisfy gamers more than Cronenberg's take on it from a few years back - this looks and feels like an actual hybrid between first person shooter war games and role playing games that exist. Helicopters, soldiers, and what looks like an HK from TERMINATOR against thieves, bishops, and what have you.

*minor spoiler* You know it's not often that mise en abyme works in a film; I think it works here better than it does in EXISTENZ. *end minor spoiler* I found it satisfying; it has a slow build that creates mood, atmosphere, and a sense of space to it. If the MATRIX kind of dissolved into a comic book by the end of itself, you could say this takes itself a bit seriously, but not to too great a fault.

Sui generis. Folks, I'm not going to lie to you; Merhige is a one or two hit wonder, but what a film (it almost excuses SUSPECT ZERO). I'm also not going to pretend to understand it completely; half of what makes it what it is is trying to second guess what the hell they are doing on the screen because of the chiaroscuro.

Richard Corliss says, "It is as if a druidical cult had re-enacted, for real, three Bible stories -- creation, the Nativity and Jesus' torture and death on Golgotha." That's not a bad description, but there seems to be more to it than the seemingly one-to-one religious correspondences.

There's an environmental theme right up near the surface -- note that toward the end (after the barrenness of the landscape) there are large pipes not unlike those on a construction site. Oh no, he's going to say look at how people are raping mother nature. One rarely sees a dead metaphor in action, and with this much hyperbole, but to see it acted out is way grislier than language implies.

And yeah, if you just want something to sync with a death metal soundtrack, it does have the requisite atrocities. But as for myself and others like me, it's an important art film that should merit a Criterion collection release. Ranks right up there with Murnau's FAUST.

~ Ray

2.5 out of 10? Really? It's not that bad for what I'd like to call - along with ELIMINATORS - a proto-video game movie. Say you're working at your standard schlock factory - i.e. Empire Pictures - and you and six of your other director friends do a semi-anthology piece for fun together. You end up with this ....

Think DRAGON'S LAIR with a Clark Kentish nerd in Subzero's ninja get-up from MORTAL KOMBAT, only instead of a dragon there's Bull Shannon from NIGHT COURT as the villain. When you're done laughing, crack open your beer. Now here's the punchline: you can watch it with your kids. No boobs, no blood. When you're done doing a spit take, wipe your mouth, and give it a shot.

Vintage essence of 1980s in a bottle, stop-motion courtesy of Dave Allen - of LASERBLAST infamy, and a Charles Band soundtrack.

~Ray