EXistenZ

David Cronenberg's "eXistenZ" is probably best known as the cerebral version of "The Matrix." It gets you to question the reality the characters are in all throughout the movie, and it continues Cronenberg's exploration of the blurring line between reality and fantasy. With "The Matrix," it was clear what the real world was and what the matrix was. With "eXistenZ," you can never be sure what is reality and what is not. Just like U2 sang it, this might be even better than the real thing.

The movie stars the always awesome Jennifer Jason Leigh ("Margot At The Wedding") as Allegra Geller, a well known game programmer who is at a special gathering to try out her latest game which is said to be like no other. While most new game consoles come in this big metal boxes, Allegra's box is a more organic creation. In typical Cronenberg fashion, the box looks like human skin that looks like it is living and breathing when it is activated. To play the game, you have to hook a cord (which looks eerily like an umbilical cord) into a port in your back which connects the game to your spinal cord. Like many a Cronenberg movie, "eXistenZ" deals with the degradation of the human body as well as the human soul.

In the course of testing out the game to an excited crowd, Allegra is nearly assassinated by a man who is intent on eliminating what he sees as a threat to reality. It soon becomes clear that seems to be a war between those who want to preserve reality by destroying the gaming industry, and those who want to preserve the games and to see them be taken to another level of advancement. Allegra is forced to go on the run to safety, and coming along with her is a young marketing trainee, a shy nerd of a man named Ted Pikul. Pikul is played by Jude Law, and it is a role that no one could probably see him playing today. Ever since he showed off his tanned body on the sunny shores in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," he has become a sexy god to many. There's nothing sexy to this character he plays here, at least, not right away.

In the course of the attack, Allegra's gaming pod is damaged, so she has to play the game to see what needs to be fixed. She encourages Ted to play it with her, but he is not terribly enthusiastic about that as he is a virgin to these kinds of games. He has never played them before, and he does not have a bioport in his back which is essential to playing the game, and he does not like things like that or needles being inserted into his body. But Allegra eventually encourages him to play along, and he does get a bioport essentially jack hammered into his back courtesy of Gas (the always reliable Willem Dafoe). From there on out, Allegra's and Ted's voyage through the game will challenge their perceptions and has them wondering where they really are in all of this.

I remember seeing "eXistenZ" almost ten years ago at an art house movie theater in Orange County. Along with the characters, I was ever so eager to experience what they were experiencing when they played the game. It took forever to get to that point it felt, and it turned out to be nothing like I thought it would. The meanings of the movie were not entirely clear when I first saw it all those years ago. Watching it now as part of a David Cronenberg double feature at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles (the other film was "Naked Lunch"), it is not only more clear what Cronenberg is trying to accomplish here. Along with our infinite advancements in technology, the story is more frightening because it is all the more real. Cronenberg is questioning how far we will go in our pursuit of the new high that is virtual reality. Once we have experienced the game, will we want to leave it? Will it make our "normal" reality feel unreal? Everyone seems to be stuck in jobs they hate but have to work, and they always dream of a better life for themselves that they wait for instead of doing anything to make it actually happen. Could this be accomplished through a game? Maybe not, but with the way technology continues to advance, anything is possible.

The other fascinating thing about "eXistenZ" is how it looks at the moral boundaries these characters cross when they play the game. The games we play on our Playstations and Xboxes seem to have that effect, but we can easily see that we are indulging in a fantasy that is completely unreal, and that makes it okay. But as the line between reality and fantasy blurs all the more as the movie goes on, the consequences seem all the more real, and these characters cross a line that they can never back to. When we cannot tell reality from fantasy, how can we justify the horrible things we do to others?

Cronenberg's movies have a look that is all their own, and "eXistenZ" has his signature touch throughout. What other director could come with an organic pod for game playing, or with a gun made out of animal bones with teeth used as bullets? Even in the game the characters are playing, the violence is still pretty vicious, and no death ever looks pretty. This is also typical with Cronenberg's movies as we see faces blown off to where certain people look like Harvey "Two Face" Dent from "The Dark Knight."

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law are always terrific in just about everything they do, and their work here in "eXistenZ" is no exception. Leigh, who usually plays characters who are anything but pretty, is an alluring presence in this movie in a way we don't usually see from her. She not only manages to seduce Jude Law (something that shouldn't be too hard to do), but she also succeeds in seducing the audience into the world her character inhabits. That's what her performance needed to accomplish in order to make the film work.

If this movie were made today, I'm not sure that we would have seen Jude Law in this role. Jude would probably be seen as much too cool to play this kind of role, and that is a drawback to being a film star. People get used to seeing you in a certain way, and it can get to where no one wants to see you as anything else. It's a shame because he truly is a great actor, and he is great as he goes against type here as a man who has to overcome his phobias and aversions in order to play the game and help Allegra. The effect it has on him is immense as it unlocks unconscious desires that soon rise to the surface. Jude portrays this conversion of character very effectively, and he has great chemistry with Jennifer in the movie. Heck, is it possible for Jude Law to not have good chemistry with another actress onscreen?

The ending of "eXistenZ" will leave you with more questions than answers. This may frustrate a lot of audiences, but Cronenberg has not always been about providing answers. You come out of his movies thinking about the storyline and of the possibility of something like this becoming a reality. It is not an action packed film like "The Matrix," and you won't see a lot of actors wearing skin clad leather costumes and wearing cool sunglasses, but the movie stands on its own as an examination of where technology is taking us. Like "Videodrome," it threatens to be a very prophetic film as we head further and further into the new millennium with new technological discoveries that are just around the corner.

We are still all on a search for something that is even better than the real thing, and it's never gonna stop.

***1/2 out of ****