Very awkward, I don’t entirely get what he’s trying to do with this one. I get the feeling Cronenberg has never played a videogame before, because while his eccentric depiction of virtual reality is fun to an extent, it doesn’t seem very well studied (even for something made in ‘99). Some of the satirical bite works, however the social commentary feels half baked and not very well thought out, there’s definitely an ‘old man yelling at cloud’ quality to it. Furthermore, the movie failed to pull me in because I didn’t care about the characters or central relationship. The acting is incredibly stilted (Dafoe is the only one who does a great job in a small supporting role), Law and Lee have no chemistry, the arcs are nonsensical and the dialogue is simultaneously too expository and awkward. Clearly it’s meant to be stylized, and the final twist makes a lot of those choices fall into place, but that doesn’t make the movie preceding it more engaging. Still, because it’s Cronenberg, there’s always some perverted fun to be had, and visually it doesn’t look half bad either. However, when looking at this as a whole, it only makes sense it’s been forgotten about with _The Matrix_ covering a lot of the same ground during the same year.

4/10