Review of The Thirteenth Floor (1999) by Emma L — 15 Nov 2010

Much like those bagels I steal from the VA Hospital, the premise of this movie is pretty infectious. A man is murdered and the only way to discover the motive is to delve into an artificial world that mimics reality to the smallest details; a world so real even the characters that inhabit it are convinced of its authenticity. That's a premise so contagious even the Wakowski brothers came down with it around the same time.

But of course this movie must have screwed it up somewhere down the line; otherwise you'd see more asthmatic dweebs dressing up like the Allstate guy instead of Lawrence Fishburne's Morpheus. In my professional amateur opinion, the problem arises when the filmmakers become so giddy about their own creation that they shit their pants two-thirds of the way through and forgot about what the point of the story was. Everything starts off well enough-there's a good deal of mystery involving the victim's surreptitious lifestyle and the essence of reality is ultimately brought into question-until the murder mystery is finally solved. At this point my reaction was as follows: "Oh...well that's pretty retarded. Alright, time to start picking apart everything that happens from here on out.".

Imagine if you would an M. Night Shamalan twist that keeps going long, long after the surprise has disintegrated into a clump of wearisome dirt. For instance, let's say that after we learn that Bruce Willis is dead we spend another thirty minutes watching him iron his new suit and polish his head to an unbearable shine so he'll make a good impression in the afterlife. That's what 13th Floor essentially is-a good central idea that lacks development and eventually just starts swimming around in circles so we won't notice it peed in the pool. Throw in some forgettable characters, a clichéd love story, and the Allstate guy running from door to door selling insurance as an undercover policeman and you'll have an unremarkable, two-hour experience you'll wish had been spent snorting coke off a stripper's buttocks. For God sake, even the final newspaper headline is about as engaging as a John Kerry speech at the inaugural Paint Drying Convention. "2024 Crime Rates at an All-Time Low!" It might as well say "Welcome to the Year 2024, Protagonist of Today's Feature Length Film. Hint: It's the Future!" At least with Kerry they have tasers to keep you awake.

Postscript: I've been doing a lot of science-fiction and fantasy movies lately, so-with the vain hope of not wanting to be classified as one of those pedantic nerds you see on YouTube editing videos so it looks like the Enterprise blows up the Death Star-I'm going to lay off them for a while.