layered, subtle images, game friendly content

Rating: Null/10 (22 June 1999)

Great spectacle and visuals. I was a little disappointed by the story, missing much of the subtlety that a reality v. paranoid fantasy can include. Total Recall did it better, leaving the question open as to whether the hero was paranoid, or whether they were really out to get him .. I mean, all that 'he is the One' stuff, and the death/resurrection/elevation to saviour status bit at the end! Maybe it's because it's constructed rather like a game (games being by their nature player-ego-flattering, everyone is always the last hope of civilization, necessitating the massive slaughter of vast numbers of aliens, drones, zombies, other players, etc). In fact the A1s virtual world looked like it must have included bits of Mortal Kombat code in it, from the way they all had to keep going one on one to sort things out. Images fantastic though - all that gloomy decay and cavernous early c20th architecture rubbing up against acres of reflective glass offices (don't they smash well!). Fine pacing, fancy slomo effects in the action sequences, and a general sense of slightly pretentious epic style foreboding gave the whole thing a bit of gravity, offsetting the sunglasses/le