Enjoyable

Rating: Null/10 (28 May 2004)

It depends on what you like... If you like a movie that ties everything up for you in a nice bow, then this ain't your movie. If you don't like to think during a movie, you likely won't enjoy it. A thinking audience is what makes this movie enjoyable, and almost interactive. So if you like layers- deep corridors of pleasantly distracting dialogue, and creative plot twists, then you will enjoy this quite a bit. My recommendation is to view yourself more than the movie the first time you watch it. Learn your own reactions and responses, but keep your speculations to a minimum. After the initial viewing, you can enjoy analyzing this movie as many times as you want. The people in this movie are beautiful to look at. There is a dark undertone, and if that's your thing, you'll find the ambiance very comfortable. The soundtrack starts off well and gets better. By the end of the movie, the music haunts you as much as the plot. The camera angles and filming are intoxicating. When you see a very empty Times Square, keep in mind that there's no computer animation here, that's really Times Square on a Sunday morning-it's amazing that they were able to do that.
For me, this movie was pure candy, and the flavor sticks around for a while. Spoilers follow.
A few beginning scenes may make one wonder where the splice actually happened. But then the main character's dreams are prominent and sometimes nearly prophetic in the film, so one can still take the splice explanation at face value. Also, after the splice happens it is interesting to witness the dialogue from the perspective of how life would unfold for David if he could always have his way. You get to see what David really wants for the people around him right after the spice. Especially how much he wanted his best friend to be his own person, and for his love interest to believe in him. Then as the Lucid Dream System's glitch rears its ugly head, David's happiness is suddenly punctuated with horrible and bizarre events. The fun in analyzing is watching the different perspectives unfold. Its fun to wonder why he chose the splice to happen on the day it did. Why didn't he choose the splice to happen before the accident? Was he willing to remember the disfigurement for the sake of keeping his stalker dead even in his Lucid Dream? The pinnacle of this movie can change at each viewing as well. It may be the moment he realizes he is in a dream, it may be the moment of the splice, or it may be the moment he decides to get in the car with his stalker. The weight to relevance of this film's many circumstances shifts more than the NASDAQ. The time line for the film is a sort of buffet- a bit of this, a touch of that. When one adds dream sequences between scenes of bliss and System Glitch to these time jumps, you end up with a delightful thinking person's plot. There are concepts in the movie that are fun to let your brain chew on. For instance, a scene that I found most amusing was when David screams for Tech Support. Wouldn't it be cool if when life started to suck, one could scream for Tech Support, and have someone show up and make everything okay? The movie proposes deep questions like how to measure the quality of life. Is a pleasurable and stimulating life worth less when it is orchestrated, rather than created by chance? Which would you choose? When you do finally learn what really happened, your head is spinning so much that you might miss the explanation. If you chose to watch it over again, you will notice something new or different every time. The backgrounds and dialogue have new things to discover and look for as well. Pop culture, trivia, and innuendo were liberally spread about in the set and script. Finally, the plot gives enough wiggle-room for the viewers to decide on the reality for themselves. Favorite quote: 'You're dead and I'm frozen... and I love you.'