I. A Prerequisite
1999. Another twelve months added to the never ending tumultuous years, decades, and centuries that mankind had lived thus far but this year in particular marked the end. For right around the corner was a new millennium ahead and those four numbers that added up to 2 gave people hope for something better on the horizon. But those dabbling in science fiction knew better and offered no such hopefulness unless of course you were the Disney Corporation. Only they could be so perverse to believe that the future was looking good.
Prescribing their agenda with their hit TV movie Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century. Giving viewers hope that even assholes that wanted to see a space station full of civilians crash and burn into the Earth could be stopped. (Note: It’s been at least 20 years since I last saw the film but that’s what I remember the whole thing was about. I’m probably wrong but whatever.) There was also the other Disney film My Favorite Martian that came out in theaters and though it took twenty years to see the results, our prays were answered in the fact that it was left behind in 1999.
Outside the grasp of the mouse’s four fingered hands though, 1999 was a year that had science fiction continuing the theme James Cameron had set near the beginning of the decade with Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The universal belief that you couldn’t trust robots for shit unless they said something like Hasta La Vista, Baby.
There was that one movie that came out called Virus. Nobody seemed to care for it on release, I was only about 13 at the time when the film showed up on the Sci-Fi channel in 2003 or 2004, but what I remember is seeing Donald Sutherland reconstructed as a robot and that scared the shit out of me. The movie itself might be ass because I haven’t seen it all the way through, and haven’t tried…yet, but I bet anyone who actually saw the film back in 1999 probably still wakes up in fright to this day, twenty years later, while screaming from that nightmare image of robot Donald Sutherland coming to kill them.
Continuing the trend was Robin Williams becoming the Bicentennial Man by the end of the year. Haven’t seen it so I can’t say anything about it but I know enough he’s a robutt. A killer robutt? Probably not so it doesn’t fit the trend. Neither did another film that I still need to see that came out that year. The David Cronenberg directed film Existenz. Something revolving around a video game and that sounds cool.
In another part of the genre, outside of not trusting robots for shit, was the real shit show that tumbled into theaters; Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. People far more interested in the Star Wars and all that it encompasses will have a greater explanation as to the horrors that the film has to offer and such. So what follows now is the recollection of when I was a 9 year old kid going to see it as best remembered from memories clouded by constant drinking.
Once upon a time in 1999, I ask my mom if she could take me to see the Star Wars. Taking no consideration on my selfish behalf of how bored out of her mind she would be the entire time. She agrees. We go to a small movie theater where the only movie they are showing is Lethal Weapon 4.
In hindsight, its tough to tell whether it would have been a better choice to see that instead of Episode I and this crossroads of the past is one I look back on and wonder…what if?
To the multiplex we go. We wait in a long line full of ecstatic fans to buy tickets. Then after that, we wait in another long line on the second floor with people giddy with excitement in front of us and behind. Nearing showtime, teenaged theater employees lead us towards the theater as though 3rd graders in a fire drill. My mother and I take our seats in the middle of the theater and in no time at all we are surrounded with no way out. I sit back and wait in anticipation to see what George Lucas had been cooking up for…I don’t know…like 15 years since the last one?
Star Wars. The opening crawl bores my mother so much that she falls asleep immediately. Alien holograms talking. I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Then light sabers and that was cool. Boring boring boring then Jar Jar Binks shows up. The crowd is not happy. Underwater ship that I later build out of LEGO’s. Boring boring boring. R2D2 saves the ship. People scream in joy hearing his name. Darth Maul looks cool. Desert planet. Flying wart creature doesn’t sell the spaceship part and the Jedi’s leave everything up to a kid who has a blood disease that equals force power. Pod racing. That was cool. Darth Maul shows up in future equivalent of a segway. Light saber fight. Cool. Boring boring boring. Queen was actually hand maiden. Boring boring boring. Light saber fight. Cool. Little kid shooting down trained soldiers that know how to fly and shoot. Not as cool. Jar Jar Binks fumbles and bumbles his way to winning the war against the robutts. Funny? Weird force field doors. Light saber fight. Cool. Green light saber man dies. Bummer? Kenobi slices Darth Maul in half. That was cool. Star Wars music. Credits.
A truly memorable piece of movie theater watching experience.
From that experience, it’s easy to tell my expertise in the field of Science Fiction films up to that time was a bit lacking, though I do think that watching and re-watching Robocop and Total Recall over and over again for the first 10 years gives me some leeway but I digress, and my knowledge at the moment still needs some verification but the true highlight of that year, or maybe it was the next?, was the fact that I ended up watching The Matrix on HBO.
It was in the 5th grade when I truly saw how fucking out there you can go with science fiction. No need to go into how great that movie is and remains to be because its been written about over and over again about how great it was and after having just re-watched it a couple days ago, I still agree it holds up. There was another film though that caught my attention in the year 1999. Not the strongest hold on my attention since it’s only just recently that I watched it.
As a child, I saw the poster for this particular film in a marquee and it was as though I only had to turn around to make it disappear. It was released in May, just about 2 months after The Matrix, with a nearly identical concept of alternate realities and in no way had a chance to be remembered when compared to The Matrix.
No surprise then to see why it’s mostly been forgotten about since except for this movie watching brain of mine that can’t remember important things like birthdays and instead keeps track of nothing but movies and sometimes movie posters. Always in the back of the head was this film and I would see enough pieces of it here and there to revitalize interest but it was never enough to make me sit down and commit to watching it.
It was only recently when purchasing a copy of the film World on a Wire, a movie that is based off the same 1964 novel, Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouyeas, that this particular movie used for source material, that I finally said that enough was enough.
My first option always in this situation was to buy a physical copy because of my strange obsession (fetish?) to have only physical copies but I saw soon enough that people are out of their fucking minds to believe I’m going to shell out FIFTY DOLLARS for a Blu-ray copy of the film. Another avenue must be sought and with no streaming service giving a shit as to what I want to watch, I rented it.
And with that proof comes the title of film; The Thirteenth Floor. A film that strives to blend itself a mix of science-fiction, neo-noir, and possibly horror(?) but never truly succeeds in accomplishing anything extraordinary or ordinary out of the three.
II. The Film After Gestation (Spoilers)
The movie starts off in 1930’s Los Angeles with a man named Fuller writing a letter, the most crucial of letters to ever be written, always the case isn’t it?, and leaves it off with a bartender named Ashton with instructions to give it only to a man named Douglas Hall. The perfect set up for a mystery because soon enough we see that Fuller is actually a user from 1999 who was in a computer simulation running a full fledged virtual world of 1930’s Los Angeles. And it’s only minutes later, in the present of 1999, Fuller gets killed. After that set up, we meet the hero of the story living inside of Deckard’s apartment from Blade Runner.
Douglas Hall wakes up without a memory of last night and bloody clothes in his wastebasket. Shit ain’t looking good and Detective Larry McBain, what a name, has high suspicion that Douglas Hall is the one doing the murdering. Fuller is super dead and in his will leaves Douglas Hall his software company. The same one that is building the simulation that will change lives, I guess? I couldn’t really understand the purpose of them building the simulation other than the thought of check this shit out, and then we find out Fuller has a daughter named Jane, that nobody had ever heard of, who is disputing the will.
Something fishy is going on and Hall enters the matrix or I mean the simulation and tries to figure out who killed the boss. Taking him two 2 hour trips into 1930’s Los Angeles to figure out what the real deal is and this is the point where the film loses steam fast.
We find out during a clunky fight scene that the letter was read by the bartender Ashton, seconds after receiving it, who then followed it’s instructions to drive to the ‘ends of the world’. Only to see the truth that he was just a program in a simulation. The fight continues and moments before being murdered in 1930’s Los Angeles, Hall gets kicked out of the simulation and takes his own trip to the ends of the world and finds out he is also in a simulation.
This time though, you see the reveal and it’s a pretty good special effect of the physical world literally coming to an end and becomes this black and green grid world. Just take a look at the poster and you’ll get a good idea of what I mean.
Back to the movie, Fuller’s daughter turns out to be a user from the year 2024 that is looking to close down the simulated simulated world to stop the programs from realizing that they themselves are in a simulated world.
Then we find out her husband David from 2024, who happens to be the user for Douglas Hall, is the one going around and killing people. He just got a taste for killing and can’t seem to get enough of murdering. No real reason from what I can remember, there probably is but I was losing focus fast by this time, about him wanting to murder but he does it and she is trying to stop it. Good versus Evil within the body of Douglas Hall. Sort of like Evil Dead 2 but you know, not as interesting.
After this revelation, the movie turns into a horror movie of David jacking into Douglas Hall’s body and killing a dude or two before he ends up getting killed while still jacked into 1999 which then leads Douglas Hall, the program, to become the conscious of 2024 David.
This most likely outcome being explained earlier on when Jason Whitney, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, whom you most likely remember as Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket but should know him from the film The Whole Wide World where he embodied pulp writer Robert E.Howard, enters the simulation and becomes bartender Ashton. Immediately entering the body and getting himself killed by being at the wrong place, in the street while it was pouring rain, at the wrong time, at night right when a truck is barreling down the road.
With his 1999 body now being held captive by the bartender who I guess is a sociopath/killer now? A whole scene happens where Douglas Hall tells him that all he is just stuck in a simulation instead of being stuck in a simulation of a simulation. Then they go back to the machine to fix the problem, something like that happens, but David shows up in Hall’s body and kills Ashton with a bullet to the brain.
Back to the ending, Douglas Hall wakes up in 2024 and sees Jane with a smile then sees Fuller, who is her father in 2024, smiling. All three of them smiling as the two lovers stand on the patio of their beachfront property in a future that doesn’t look anything like the certain hell on earth that 2024 is destined to be.
III. Facts Disguised as Opinion/Speculation
Directed by Josef Rusnak who co-wrote the script with Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez, who from what I can tell from his IMDB profile has written nothing before or since, seemed to be interested in some parts of the film but not necessarily the entire picture.
Those scenes that take place in 1930’s Los Angeles are fantastic. They look great and convey a whole new world that sells the idea that it’s all a simulation. From the set design spanning from the interiors and exteriors, to the authentic to the era wardrobe, and just having that look of artificiality with the tint in the color scheme. All of that makes it go a long way in not just selling the setting of 1930’s but also the nostalgia from what it was created from. That then leaves a problem with the 1999 simulation since there is nothing about it’s presentation that is dissimilar from every other film that was shot and set in Los Angeles. At least modern films of 1999.
I could understand possibly maintaining that sense of normality so that the reveal at the 1 hour mark, where Douglas Hall discovers that he himself is part of a simulation, is more of a shock but I believe that actually hinders the reveal. Without that hint of artificiality or just something more in the visual aspect to make it stand out just makes that particular simulation seem less interesting.
Nowhere in the film could I figure out a WHY this is the case for this particular simulation to look this way nor a WHY this simulation was created in the first place besides the answer that Jane gives being something along the lines of, ”Because we wanted to.” Even Fuller, at least 1999 Fuller, has a reason to set his simulation in the 1930’s and he’s just a simulated man.
It’s mentioned fairly early that it was the place of his childhood or something like that which means that the simulation created in the simulation comes from memories of a program. Which goes into a far more interesting and undiscovered line of questioning; Do these programs in fact validate their existence more so than humans that created them since they manage to develop memories even though they themselves are artificial? Maybe that’s not the most ponderous question but it’s something to think about for a second or two. It’s just a bummer that the parts of the movie take place in a normal looking 1999 are a little boring to look at.
I couldn’t figure out an answer to the purpose of this 1999 simulated world existing and so I had to start asking questions. To myself of course since nobody else wanted to watch this movie. The questions that came to mind are as followed in chronological order:
Who had a nostalgia for this boring looking ass world of 1999? Was there someone in the year 2024 that did research of the year and came across the subject of Woodstock ‘99 and needed to live through that experience? To experience that mosh pit of Generation X giving one more scream of youth and rebellion before selling out? Or maybe there was a person in 2024 that specifically created this alternate world, most likely since they couldn’t build a time machine, to try and stop a movie like The Phantom Menace from being released? Or even maybe the point of the film itself is trying to question our existence as a whole in 1999 and beyond as one where we are too passive and the only way we ever seem to come out of this passiveness is MURDER?! Am I extrapolating something that isn’t even in the film? Most likely. Maybe its in the book, I should give it a read sometime. End of thought process.
Problematic the entire film is but those first 60 minutes out of the hundred are pretty great. Just a shame that it starts off with a murder that incidentally doesn't mean anything in the end or actually about a minute past that hour mark. For after that beautiful hour, the remaining 40 minutes has the film turn into a horror movie of David making a big entrance by killing D’Onofrio. Then he tries to kill his wife within the simulated 1999 until Officer McBain shows up and kills him instead. McBain then tells her that whoever was running this simulation was better off leaving them alone.
For a shining moment in those 40 minutes, there was a notion of a self aware program that accepted who he was and that could have probably been a far more interesting character to follow throughout the movie then who the movie ultimately made us follow.
Then the very non surprising ending occurs where everyone is happy and nobody important is dead.
Final complaint. Beyond the very very weak execution of the potentially interesting plot was the romance that is supposed to hold the movie together. It just isn’t there. Those leads, Craig Bierko and Gretchen Mol, say their lines but goddamn is there just no chemistry between the two. It was real tough to give a shit about whether or not they got to together by the end of the movie but I have a reason why that is. The lack of interest in the romance lead my brain to pay far more attention to what had happened to Vincent D’Onofrio’s character.
At the end of the movie, where its supposedly a happy ending, there is no 2024 version of D’Onofrio that shows up and says I’m a human too. So then that means the computer program of D’Onofrio in the simulated 1999 world had created a specific computer program of D’Onofrio in the 1930’s simulation. Double the D’Onorfrio. Who in all honesty is probably the reason to see the movie besides that one cool special effect.
Then when jacking in to 1930’s Los Angeles, 1999 D’Onofrio gets run over by a truck and switches consciousness with 1930’s D’Onofrio who ends up getting shot in the head. A program switching existence with another program. Which is a way cool idea to me.
But then when we get to 2024, you realize the most likely of situations is that his character never existed in the first place and was just a couple lines of code that was forever deleted in both the simulated simulated world and the simulated world. Douglas Hall gives absolutely no shits about the fate of his best friend and reveals himself to be the biggest monster of them all.
The music was alright. It’s there. Not much else to say but at least I can give the film credit for avoiding my expectation of an electronic orientated soundtrack and instead went for a orchestral one. Though it isn't necessarily the most memorable, it's still very much appreciated.
IV. Wrap Up
The film doesn’t succeed. Never venturing into the existential territory that seems necessary for a movie handling material like this to work but neither does it really care to do much about the material in the first place. Instead dropping all that off to go for a horror movie third act that isn’t all that interesting or well done either. Neither does it do anything interesting or investigates fully what it means for simulated realities and the programmed people unknowingly involved in them except for saying to themselves ‘Well, that sucks that I’m not real.’
Even though it isn’t successful, I can still appreciate it right up to that one hour mark because, for the most part, it’s great. I was hooked and if I knew better, I would have stopped the film there but I didn’t and so I must suffer in disappointment whenever coming back to this specific movie watching memory.
Upon my research, in which I’ve done very little, Vincent D'Onofrio is supposedly quoted as saying something along the lines that the theme of the movie was about wanting something that you couldn't have. At least this what I got from the IMDB trivia section.
I cannot connect the dots of what he said with what I saw but I can agree on the level of wanting something memorable and only receiving something just passable for a late night watch.