It's usually a bad thing for someone to beat you to the punch with a new idea. When it comes to Hollywood movies, that's particularly true if you're not the first or, at best, second film out of the gate concerning a particular plot or theme. That's why after last year's big rocks from outer space films, "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon," there wasn't "The Sky is Falling!" and "Heads Up!"
Unfortunately for "The Thirteenth Floor," it doesn't even earn "show" status -- as in horse racing terminology -- for it's the fourth film of 1999 to tell a story about alternate realities where the characters learn that computers have played a nasty little trick on them.
While all have their decidedly different approaches -- "The Matrix" was visually stunning, "Open Your Eyes" (a 1997 Spanish film that opened here this year) was a wild, mind-blowing experience and "eXistenZ" was mostly an odd gross-out picture with a twist -- their similarities have certainly stolen the thunder and burst the novelty bubble of this latest release.
That said, the film -- like those others -- has an intriguing premise and this one in particular eventually requires a scorecard or flowchart about midway through to keep track of all the reality and temporal-based twists and turns. In that regard, the film is fun to watch as it unfolds and keeps the audience guessing about what's real and what's not.
Unfortunately, "The Thirteenth Floor" is as unlucky as its title regarding lively acting, believable dialogue and a compelling plot apart from the sci-fi aspects. While "eXistenZ" somewhat got away with similar problems by having most of the movie being "fake" (where characters even joked about how bad the dialogue, accents and plot were), this film doesn't do that beyond a brief mention of the past's "colorization" problem. Consequently, the audience is thus forced to sit through some bland -- if not downright bad -- moments, dialogue and performances.
Based on Daniel Galouye's novel "Simulacron 3" and playing off the symbolic notion that the thirteenth floor isn't labeled or doesn't exist in some buildings for superstitious reasons, the film has a fun "Twilight Zone" feel to it where characters realize -- due to various eventual twists -- that they're all just puppets in a world where nothing is as it ever seems.
Yet where writer/director Josef Rusnak (a 2nd unit director on "Godzilla") and co-writer Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez obviously spent a lot of time constructing their modified version of a time- travel movie, they noticeably didn't take as much care covering the film's other details.
Part of the problem stems from the casting of Craig Bierko ("Til There Was You," "Sour Grapes") as the central character. While some may complain of Keanu Reeve's woodenness in "The Matrix," he seems like Olivier compared to this film's leading man.
With neither the looks nor thespian abilities usually associated with leading men in any major motion picture, Bierko comes off more as a "B" movie performer. As such and due to a lack of any sort of magnetic spark, we never really care for his character, and his overall blandness leaves a dead hole in the middle of the film.
His supporting performers don't help him much either. Gretchen Mol ("Rounders," "Celebrity") plays her enigmatic character so much to the definition of that word that she comes off even more bland than Bierko, while Dennis Haysbert ("Love Field," "Absolute Power") isn't very impressive or believable as the detective "hounding" our protagonist.
Only Armin Mueller-Stahl ("Shine," "The X-Files") as the company owner and Vincent D'Onofrio ("The Newton Boys," "Men In Black"), the human chameleon, deliver decent performances, but their supporting status unfortunately insures that their screen time is limited.
Of course one can't completely fault the performers for the film's problems, for they're all saddled with rather lackluster direction and often laughably bad dialogue. For a murder mystery type story, the film lacks any real sense of urgency, and we never feel -- and thus consequently don't believe -- the "squeeze" being put on Hall or his need to uncover the truth.
Thus, while the basic sci-fi plot is compelling -- although the choice of 1937 lacks any historical significance or dramatic bite -- its execution and realization is rather flat. In addition, while the story's "spin" on the old time-travel plot prevents many of the "but what if they changed this or that" arguments, it also removes the dangers of one's impact on the past that makes such stories so interesting.
To make matters worse, the dialogue is often the stuff straight out of those bad "B" movies that air late at night on obscure cable channels. When one character melodramatically states "How can you even love me. I'm not even real" and his lover replies, "You're more real than anything I've ever known" you'll be howling in delight/disgust at the inanity of it all.
The film's not-so-special special effects also have that low-end look and obviously suffer from unfavorable comparisons to the spectacular imagery in "The Matrix." While some 1937 vistas of L.A. under construction are fun, the main effects -- several "worm hole" sequences seen in various other films as well as the use of the old flat laser beam effects used at rock concerts back in the '70's -- are rather blase and do nothing to help the film's overall mediocre presentation.
Although the film earns some points simply for having an intriguing premise and fun, later related developments, the fact that it's the fourth film of the year to play off a similar notion will obviously hurt its reception with both critics and audiences alike.
That, coupled with flat performances, direction and some stilted dialogue prevents the film from being as good or exciting as it should have been. While the film isn't a horrible chore to sit through, it's lackluster execution and related problems certainly prevent it from becoming a sci-fi classic or even simply just an entertaining film. Thus, we give "The Thirteenth Floor" a 4 out of 10.
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