Review of The Thirteenth Floor (1999) by Bradley K — 03 Aug 2013

A slow paced blend of The Truman Show and the much later Inception, The Thirteenth Floor brings a lot of genres together to make an overall decent movie with an unclear focus. There is much more potential here than there is success, but the concept is solid and worth a viewing.

- Details Breakdown -.

The Good: The Thirteenth Floor strikes a good balance between psychological thriller and traditional science fiction in an almost neo noir mystery that brings genuine surprises as well as heartfelt searches for meaning in life from the characters. The multiple temporal and spacial structure keeps the audience on their toes and paying close attention The settings are rich and the acting is well done for the most part. The film manages to create multiple worlds that are believable as both real and as fabricated, which lends itself well to the ever changing plot. This film has a very strong feeling of traditional science fiction and feels like a blend of The Truman Show and Inception which bookend it. There is the concept of limited worlds and being trapped like a rat in a maze found in The Truman Show and there is the concept of multiple levels of fabricated reality underneath the real world found in Inception. A bit of a noir style is used for the lowest level of reality, 1937, and this feel spills over into the 1999 level of storytelling, what with the mysterious and allusive woman who looks straight out of the 30's and the bowler hat wearing detective. Parallels and contrasts between the various versions of each character gives an interesting level of depth to the story as well as an element of being unpredictable since the characters' personalities can shift without warning.

The Bad: The special effects are extremely cheesy in some parts and clearly show the age of the film. The ending world in 2024, which is supposed to be the real world, looks the most fake by far in the entire film. There is a rather slow pace to the film that does not pick up until about half way through that would deter many from continuing. Certain plot points are left hanging and either never explained or they are explained much later than they should have been. The film has more potential than it has success and does not fully utilize the world appropriately at times. The main focus of the film is very unclear and appears to constantly shift back and forth, making it unclear if Douglas is trying to avenge his friend or prove his own innocence as his primary objective. There is little to no evidence that Douglas did in fact do what he supposedly did and there are only the slightest of hints along the way, making the mystery unable to be solved by viewers until the final act when it is revealed.