May 27–June 3, 1999

movie shorts

The Thirteenth Floor

Why is it that the urban noir setting, circa 1940s, is so popular with the SF multiple-realities crowd? It appears in Blade Runner, Brazil, Dark City, several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Matrix, and now, The Thirteenth Floor. This time around, 1937 LA is a computer-simulated, deco-styled reality populated by "units," borrowed by "users" (who live in way-Bauhaus domiciles) for some virtual reality excursions. The units don't know they're not real and the users assume they are. The mystery gets underway when user Armin Mueller-Stahl is murdered and his business partner Craig Bierko (forgettable in The Long Kiss Goodnight) is suspected by a tough-but-not-so-bright cop (underused Dennis Haysbert) and helped to jump in and out of realities by computer geek Vincent D'Onofrio (excellent, as always, but looking for drama in his roles here). Enter The Girl (Gretchen Mol, with bee-stung lips) who further confuses Bierko with her own reality-hopping. The concept raises disturbing questions responsibility and morality in virtual realities, but the movie gets bogged down in a less than convincing romance and a couple of Tron-recalling effects.

—Cindy Fuchs