Anthony Lee Collins

Similar to The Matrix in that it deals with virtual reality, but since this is a David Cronenberg movie nothing is sleek, fancy or electronic. The guns are made from gristle and shoot teeth instead of bullets, and the "game pod" looks like sexualized stomach. Many of the people getting off on The Matrix would be unsettled (if not repulsed) by this movie, and that may be the idea.

Allegra Gellar (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the inventor of a virtual reality game called eXistenZ, which is played by plugging a game pod into a "bioport" (a socket at the base of the spine). Some people (called "the Realists") disapprove of the whole idea and try to kill her. So, she and Ted Pikul (Jude Law), a "PR nerd" from the company she works for, go on the run. His biggest priority is trying to keep her alive, hers is to stop running long enough play eXistenZ with him so they can be sure her one-of-a-kind game pod (which she refers to as her baby) is undamaged.

But first they have to get Ted fitted with a bioport, so they go to an especially greasy rural gas station, run by Willem Dafoe, who does the operation as a sideline.

It goes on from there, with many twists and turns, and the world inside eXistenZ isn't any sleeker or more futuristic than the real world. A lot of it is both disturbing and a little silly, and in the end it's obvious that both reactions are part of the plan. Unlike The Matrix, this movie is in on its own joke, and it has a terrific ending.

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