Rizar

"Avalon" follows in the tradition of movies based on a fictional video game (named Avalon in this case). These tend to work better than films based on real life video games. "Tron" and "eXistenZ" are two popular movies to do the same tactic. But Oshii's "Avalon" deserves to be better known.

The story follows a heroine, Ash (Malgorzata Foremniak), her gamer name, as she plays a virtual reality game for money in the near future. She plugs into the game by sitting in a dentist-like chair and pulling on a metal helmet (with wires dangling everywhere). The game rooms are in a decaying, back alley building because Avalon is officially illegal. She looks lifeless as she sits in the chair and seems exhausted when she awakes from playing.

Much of Mamoru Oshii's past work as a director was on mature anime films ("Ghost in the Shell" & "Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence"). "Avalon" breaks with his tradition and uses human actors, real tanks, and real city locations filmed on location in Poland. Some scenes and special effects are computer generated. But like "The Matrix", most of the movie takes place in a virtual game.

The game rules come to us in small bits of information. Here are some of the basics. At first, it looks like a war game in which she walks around shooting tanks, helicopters, and other players. But then we learn you can form teams with other players and fight missions to collect points. Game players have different classes: warrior (like Ash), thief, mage, and bishop. They get paid depending on how well they play. They also have to pay-to-play, and this restricts them in certain ways: we hear that Ash cannot switch to bishop class without playing so much she would run out of money.

Ash plays alone, for the most part, and she seems to make good money playing the game. She's one of the top players and makes enough to do it full time. Some characters she meets in the game are other players, and some are purely digital programs. Actually, the recent film, "Inception", has similar rules for dream worlds since you only have a chance of dying in a dream if you get lost in lower levels of them. You also don't die when you die in the game (in Avalon, too, that is), you just wake up. But you run the risk of becoming brain dead if you delve into the game too deeply. Sometimes players never awake and become vegetables. Ash is not afraid of the risk, however; she's cocky and courageous (or addicted).

Do previous game players who choose to stay there (and let their bodies go brain dead back on earth) die when they get killed in the game? Their body is unplugged and over at a hospital, but the projection of them still exists in the game. Some of them seem to think a game existence is important enough to choose to stay in the game forever. But what if Ash kills a previous player in one of her game missions? The choice of whether it's ethical to kill a previous player is quite complicated and depends on your definition of a person. Do game projections qualify when they float around in the game? Do they actually "die" if Ash shoots them? The plot moves along a bit faster when Ash hears about a secret level, and the ethical questions come to greater conflict. Usually the game is never-ending during typical play, but rumors spread that she might be able to beat the game or, at least, get a heck of a lot of experience points in a secret level. To get to the level, she has to find a ghost and shoot it, so she teams up with Bishop to get help.

Oshii first shot the film in full color, but then he digitized and edited it into mostly black and white. Some color remains, mixed in here and there by choice (the computer text is orange, a hologram is rainbow colored, and the end of the film is in full color).

It takes great care to get the director's vision on screen. But the long pauses for effect (as in "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Solaris"), may annoy impatient viewers. For example, we hear a classical opera piece twice, almost all the way through both times. The first time the piece has subtitles and we get a montage about the city and game environment. The second time the song plays during the climax of Ash's secret level mission, perhaps the most exciting part of the movie. It slows down the movie at just the moment we want more information about the deeper levels of the game. It could give us a better look around, but it chooses artistic silence instead (which is commendable).

Where "The Matrix" ends the movie with bullets and martial arts, "Avalon" ends with dramatic music and meditative imagery. "Avalon" never went long without giving important information. But you might discount the information if you don't love intricate video games. Visually it's still well worth watching if you are in this situation. My only major complaint seems minor: Bartlomiej Swiderski (as Stunner) needs to learn some table manners since he eats like a dog! "Avalon" deserves more attention for its ideas. Like in "The Matrix" and "Inception", it asks whether virtual reality is better or worse than reality. Ash discovers blurry lines between game and reality (her dog goes missing and shows up in the game, for example). More properly, the film argues that reality is constructed by her individual perspective and possibly by her choices (she sees the same statue once with its head and once headless).

"Galaxy Quest" is a SF-comedy gem and a hilarious parody of Star Trek antics and Trekkies. It revels in ridiculous situations and has a lot of fun doing it. Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" has one such situation that pushes unprepared actors into an all-too-real adventure. Mel Brook's "Spaceballs" is similar in another way. Its characters also stumble through exaggerated SF plots and themes (Star Wars mainly in their case). But "Spaceballs" doesn't seem quite as absorbed in its idea and the broader fan base for imaginative worlds like Star Trek or Star Wars as Dean Parisot's film.

The film is as much about fans of Star Trek, the Trekkies, as it is about Star Trek itself. It features former crew members in a popular TV series. The out-of-work actors sign photographs at Trekkie conventions and appear at ribbon cutting ceremonies. We are told, but never see, that Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen), the Commander, participates in paid garage reenactments of the show alone. The other actors resent the Commander for leaving them out.

Tim Allen is believable enough as the Commander, but he excels as an actor coming off a popular TV show and as a dejected past star (especially as a couple critics of the Trekkie convention laugh at him behind his back). As events unfold in the more ridiculous moments, he's at his best. Eager to become a true Commander and go boldly across the solar system, through a worm hole, and into space and alien worlds, he genuinely believes he could act his way through commanding a Star Ship. Being hung over and mistaken about his surroundings helps, though.

His other cast members are the heart of the humorous parts. Sam Rockwell has some of the funniest scenes as a miscellaneous crew member without a last name, simply called Guy. Tony Shalhoub (as Tech Sergeant Fred Kwan) has the nonchalance of a Bill Murray ("Ghostbusters"). Sigourney Weaver (as Gwen DeMarco, the eye candy), Alan Rickman (as Alexander Dane, the intelligent adviser), and Daryl Mitchell (as Tommy Webber, the youthful helm) round out the rest of the crew.

Enrico Colantoni as Mathesar, leader of the Thermians, comes close to stealing the movie with his robotic mannerisms, off key vocals, and fascination with human culture. Thermians are an alien race able to engineer great feats of technology and science, but awful at operating their gadgets and even worse at dealing with deceit or defending themselves against their enemies. In the plot, they mistake the "Galaxy Quest" TV show for "historical documents" and, consequently, they mistake actors for astronauts.

However, a real version of them would quickly detect the absence of any Star Ships around Earth, and make the deduction that humans are not capable of such technology. How could the Thermians become so advanced in the first place while being so easily duped? How can an entire species fail to work its own technology and come to need humans? Well, it's possible of course, but highly unlikely. But it doesn't matter because the Thermians have so many redeeming qualities. They are the biggest "Trekkies" of all.

The Thermian mistakes make for subtle comedy. They add ridiculous elements and allow us to relish the equally ridiculous reactions to the unlikely situations. Guy (Sam Rockwell) constantly thinks he's in a show (where lovable aliens will surely turn vicious, and expendable crew members will usually die), Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) defends parroting the computer (and the computer will only respond to her), and Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) suddenly becomes an expert pilot. Many such odd things happen in the final parts. Some are just plot devices, but others are truly funny.

The best moments are the realistic responses to absurd situations. Guy exclaims in horror as the crew lands on an alien world and opens the landing craft without testing for air. Later, Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) yells in disgust at having to navigate a course of "chompers" or mechanical traps that a bad writer tossed into an episode to keep the tension high (and that the Thermians were duped into reproducing).

The movie doesn't dwell on the deeper messages of Star Trek. Instead it focuses on the ethos of the crew and repeating phrases ("never give up, never surrender") as central to the human parts of the show. Usually such themes about our humanity are deeper and more interesting in actual Star Trek. But it does depict a group of super Trekkies who ask riddling questions about logical holes in the show. They would be the future scientists or engineers that write about their love of Star Trek (such as Lawrence Krauss in "The Physics of Star Trek").