Best movie of this year hands down!

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is a movie which perfectly captures your state of mind as you slowly awake from a dream. What you thought were true realities while you were asleep become increasingly fraudulent the more you process them logically and consciousness rears its head, paradoxically there still remains a sense of legitimacy to the situations and ideas that had manifested themselves in your mind so abrasively as you slept. On one plain plane the players, like chronic somnambulists, know they are in a game yet their bodies and minds continue to act and think in ways that they cannot predict or control. They give in to the confusion because it offers a break from conscious thinking and inhibitions and opens up previously unknown avenues of imagination. What at first seems incoherent in this movie becomes more and more believable as images, characters, phrases, etc repeat themselves in fragments that you slowly begin to recognize subconsciously. Everything starts to make vague sense yet you won't be able to put your umbilical cord on exactly what it is the dream (or your own unconscious mind) is trying to tell you. The story operates in the same way that the plot of a dream does,gliding from one situation to another seemingly at random, you cannot remember exactly where you came from, how long you'd been there, or why you'd been there but you gain a sense of reverence for the places you've been and the people you've met because they all make strange cosmic sense to you, they embody all of your deepest fears and desires so honestly that you cannot help but be grateful to them. Forget any coherent message or intelligent thought when you experience this movie because they are unnecessary to dream with.For maximum harmonic understanding, ingest a handful of dubiously obtained Armenian sleeping pills, hang upside down from the ceiling of your lair whilst double fisting two bloated goat stomachs full of your great grandmother's long-frozen/now-thawed bReaSt miLk. Play the movie backwards with the sound going forwards on a loop for as long as it takes to you know what with you know who in you know where you tyrant demon basterd….

I am not a big fan of Cronenberg. I despise it when a director does the same style or theme a thousand times and no one is more guilty of it than he(except for maybe Tim Burton). It gets repetitive though I understand why some might like his type of work. I watched another film of his-Video Drome-and hated it. I thought it was like someone trying to throw every type of food they liked into a blender put forgot to put the top on-a complete mess in other words. EXistenZ though takes all those foods and manages to create an exquisite- though somewhat disgusting-cuisine. The story is about a game designer in a future where game systems are biologically engineered. A bounty is put out on her head and now she must team up with a PR guy to stay alive. But it gets a thousand times more complicated from there. The movies goes through so many twists and turns that it actually almost became disorienting. Yet it stays fixed on the same idea: is this reality? Video Drome had a similar set up but an awful pay off unlike what he did with this picture. My only complain is just how graphic and foul mouthed he got. Are ten f-bombs seriously needed for this picture? Still the atmosphere and story are actually strong enough to make me want to watch it again sometime.

The film was directed by David Cronenberg, who for me is either a hit or miss. This film, (while it had it's upsides, but I'll get to that later) was an, unfortunate miss. Jude Law is usually an incredible actor, and his performance in this is serviceable, but he is god-awful at doing an American accent. Just about every aspect of this film doesn't reach it's potential. The performances are OK, but not great, the directing is OK, but not great, and the script was... not very good. A few plot holes, and by the climax of the film I was not invested in what was happening at all. Also, I've now figured out that David Cronenberg has a strange "tentacle/foot fetish". There were a few serious moments involving tentacles that made me laugh out loud. The only upside to the film was the puppetry, some of these puppets/special effects were very realistic looking and pretty gross at that. But other than that, the film was a complete mess.

The idea of this movie is a great one, examining the nature of reality, asking questions about how we accept what we see, and how do we really know what is real and what is not? It is interesting that the movie does not really comment on the rights or wrongs of the obsessive gaming being portrayed, which I believe was a wise choice, as otherwise the movie may have become disjointed by splitting its attention between two themes.The cast were very good. I felt that all actors did an excellent job, especially portraying the changeable personalities necessary to the plot, including the ambiguities that make the audience question whether they are observing a character or a player.I do think the script and plot were flawed. There were holes in the plot that could not always be taken as hints to what is real and what is not.In conclusion, this is an entertaining movie. I would class it as pretty good, but not great.