Product Description

WHEN SCIENCE MEETS VIRTUAL REALITY, THE LINE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS IN PARALLEL DIMENSIONS BECOMES DANGEROUSLY BLURRED. SPECIAL FEATURES: FULL SCREEN AND WIDESCREEN VERSIONS, SUBTITLES: ENGLISH, DVD ROM AND WEB LINK, DIRECTOR AND PRODUCTION DESIGNER COMMENTARY, CONCEPTUAL ART GALLERY AND MUCH MORE.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12650 in DVD
• Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
• Released on: 1999-10-05
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, Special Edition, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.com
Computer scientist Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl) finds something extremely important. Knowing that he's marked for assassination, he leaves a message in the virtual reality world he's designed, hoping it will be found by colleague Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko). Hall is a suspect in Fuller's murder and indeed finds a bloody shirt in his house, with no recollection of what he did the night before. Hall plunges headlong into Fuller's world (a re-creation of 1937 Los Angeles) to try to unravel the slaying and is soon knee-deep in confusion and trouble. What this film lacks in character depth and plot cohesiveness it makes up for in special effects and high concept. Fans of films like Blade Runner, Dark City, eXistenZ, and even the game Sim City should find this appealing. Of course, there's the question of letting the computers do all the heavy lifting in films while the humans walk through the plot (an all-too-familiar scenario in 1999), but the re-creation of '30s Los Angeles is certainly something to see, pallid script and acting or not. The Thirteenth Floor is a stylish modern-day noir that raises questions about technology versus reality, all the while wrapped up in a murder-mystery story line. --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Reviews

Elevators sometimes skip "the thirteenth floor"
but you shouldn't. This is a very good movie and most any sci-fi or cyber freak should enjoy it. The premise is that in the near future a Los Angeles-based company has almost perfected a virtual reality system so real that a customer can jack into it and experience 1937 L.A. as a real person, interacting with cyberpeople who behave as real as their real-world counterparts. When the Craig Bierko character's boss (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl) turns up dead, our hero has no choice but to go into the 1937 reality. He discovers a very spooky thing: those 1937 characters have developed an independent consciousness and don't realize that they are "unreal" in any sense, mere technical creations.

The plot thickens, and I don't want to spoil it. I thought this movie should have done much better at the box office, and possibly it would have if not for the fact that The Matrix blew it and quite a few ships out of the water in the virtual-reality flick department. But The Thirteenth Floor has its own charms, and is well worth enjoying on its own terms.

A Thoughtful Virtual Reality
Here are a few elements of this movie that might appeal to some people:

Firstly, it presents a clearer, more sensible idea of how virtual reality works than its 1999 movie siblings "THE MATRIX" or "eXistenZ". And it does it thoughtfully, without mind-numbing action scenes and special-effects.

Secondly, the virtual reality world of L.A. in the 1930s is visually rich, yet doesn't stray too far from a realistic look.

Bonus extras are Armin Mueller-Stahl's, Vincent D'Onofrio's and Dennis Haysbert's performances, Gretchen Mol's lusciousness (also enjoyably down-to-earth as a grocery clerk), and exquisite direction and photography (Josef Rusnak, Wedigo von Schultzendorff)

On the DVD, director Rusnak makes the accompanying commentary in the way I like -- he comments on what we're watching with relevent and interesting behind-the-scenes info.

I rewatch this film (and film with commentary) frequently for these reasons.

Imaginative, different type of movie
Tired of explosions and bad guys who shoot hundreds of bullets but still miss their main target? Try this drama/sci fi movie. The characters are the stars, not the sets nor the action sequences. Bierko is great as the lead and has star quality. Why can't he get more roles? Gretchen Mol is beautiful and is convincing as the mysterious blonde with a hidden agenda. I don't want to give much away as this is really a classical mystery.