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I wanted to like eXistenZ if only because the critics hated it so, but I couldn't deny the unmistakable truth that it was really, really not very good. Some wonderful ideas--the "realist" movement, as Ellis mentions, the organic guns that avoid metal detectors, the bioports, the biological gamepods--but bungling, ham-fisted execution that pisses away the potential of the ideas.
The "Is it real? is it another level of the game?" that was supposed to be so tense and creepy just didn't work for me at all--because even the segments that were ostensibly "real" seemed so stiff and hokey. Cronenberg is often accused of being cold, but he's gotten some great performances out of his actors before (in The Fly and particularly Dead Ringers), but he was certainly no great director-of-actors here.
And that ending---gahhh!! I saw the first twist coming a mile away... but the last two minutes... gawd. Just terrible. Utterly gratuitous, pointless, senseless, and out-of-character. It pissed me off so much that I couldn't sleep afterwards: I stayed up all night trying to rewrite the ending in my head and thereby salvage the film, but eventually I had to give it up as a lost cause.
A disappointment, more than anything, because the makings of a good film were there, and Cronenberg dropped the ball so badly. |
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