eXistenZ, Jennifer Jason Leigh, ...

THE NAME OF THE GAME Law and Leigh get real, virtually

Video Review

eXistenZ

EW's GRADE
B+

Details Movie Rated: R; Genres: Drama, Mystery and Thriller, Sci-fi and Fantasy; With: Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law

Less a virtual-reality thriller than a riff on the riddle of ''reality'' itself, David Cronenberg's latest is typically icky and unusually witty. Leigh is a VR-game designer with a price on her head, and Law is a corporate dork she takes on as a bodyguard/playmate. The director's obsession with tracing the labyrinths of consciousness comes at the expense of character development, but the psychological depths Cronenberg reaches are tingling to fathom.

Reel Goodies Willem Dafoe turns up, sleek and freaky, as a grease monkey named Gas. The Last Detail Here, Cronenberg is working from his own original material for the first time since 1983's ''Videodrome.''

Originally posted Oct 19, 1999
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