What is real?

"Death to the demoness Allegra Geller!"

Well this just happened to be a major coincidence when going through my queue and knocking out some movies. I watched the science fiction film eXistenZ, and immediately followed it with the horror/thriller, My Little Eye which I will review tomorrow - both which co-star Kris Lemche.

eXistenZ is a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by David Cronenberg (yes, the "A History of Violence" and "Eastern Promises" director).

Much to my suprise, the cast is almost entirely made up of pretty well known peopl Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian Holm, Willem Dafoe, Don McKellar (the only guy I didn't reconize from the main cast), Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben Conoy on "Battlestar"), Christopher Eccleston (Doctor #9 from Doctor Who), Sarah Polley, and as a minor role, Kris Lemche.

The film takes place in the not too distant future, where a virtual reality system has become extremely popular, at least to the vast majority of the people out there. Jude Law play Ted Pikul, ordered to protect the eXistenZ game designer Allegra Geller, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh from a small but radically opposed group out to kill her.

I wasn't entirely convinced by the film, but after hearing some negative word of mouth from it, I came away less disappointed than I figured I would be. While elements are similar to The Matrix which came out soon after this film, it really doesn't resemble much of it other than questioning what is real - so don't expect that if you plan on watching.

The film delves into what is reality and what isn't. If VR is as real as reality, then how can you tell what is real and what isn't? Will you ever know if you're really in the real world?

*** out of *****