| This film was overshadowed by, and ultimately lost in The Matrix, just like Dark City. Each of these films dealt with our perception of reality, but this one here, at least in Book form, was the absolute first, decades prior to the Wachowski brothers.Released in a flurry of invisibility in May 1999, exactly two months after The Matrix came out, this film was quietly swallowed up in The Matrix, although it was almost the exact same premise as The Matrix.Produced by world-destruction expert Roland Emmerich, directed by Josef Rusnak who is directing this year's "Beyond" - For a <more> film made by Emmerich, this film does not have 15-mile wide spaceships, or a huge Pyramid ship and a Ring that flushes sideways, or environmental disasters, or Mel Gibson waving Flags that had not been conceived yet... This film is a very quiet, Noir film, completely different than the normal Faire that Emmerich's company Centropolis produces.With a cast headed by Craig Bierko, a very pretty Gretchen Mol, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Dennis Haysbert, not to mention a hippy version of Vincent D'Onofrio along with a Bartender version of same, this film was the first to ask the question: "What if... what we perceive as reality is not reality at all, but some constructed thing?" - But whereas The Matrix has only The Matrix, this film deals with Worlds within Worlds, a concept and direction that I thought The Matrix was taking in the final scene of "Matrix Reloaded" but was disappointed to be proved wrong with "Matrix Revolutions".That is where story-wise, this film supersedes The Matrix, it has a much superior concept driving the storyline. Where the Matrix was globbed together by the Wachowski brothers, this film was actually based on a world-class science fiction novel "Simulacron-3" written by Daniel F. Galouye. An Earlier version of this story was made for TV in West Germany in 1973 as "World on a Wire".In 1937 Los Angeles, Hannon Fuller Armin Mueller-Stahl , leaves a Hotel, visits a bar and gives bartender Jerry Ashton Vincent D'Onofrio a note to be given to a man named "Douglas Hall". Needless to say, Ashton immediately opens the note. Fuller goes home and goes to bed, and wakes up in 1999 Los Angeles... He was in a Virtual Construct of 1937 Los Angeles.This is the beginning of the film - in 1999 LA, some bad things happen and Douglas Hall is to be blamed for them... Until he meets Fuller's Daughter Jane Grethen Mol who can give him an alibi - Except for the fact that she does not exist and Fuller "Never Had a Daughter" according to cop Dennis Haysbert. From there, this film wades between 1937 Los Angeles and 1999 Los Angeles... And we have to guess how deep the construct goes. In a way, this is similar to the film "Inception" and the "Dream within a Dream within a Dream within a Dream" concept... Except that this is no dream, as Ashton tells Hall: "We are real people and you are screwing with us".If The Matrix had not bombarded the market with it's weaker concept of this plot, this film might have been the sleeper of 1999. As it is, I think this film is the better of the two, although I liked both of them. <less> |
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