The Thirteenth Floor

There have been numerous recent movies based on virtual reality themes, including The Matrix, eXistenZ, and Dark City.  The Thirteenth Floor is related to these, but it is the most philosophical and humanistic.  It begins with the Descartes quote, "I think, therefore I am."

The premise of the movie is that two software designers have created a virtual, computer-generated world in a supercomputer.  The world is based in a historical time period, and it has realistic inhabitants.  Unlike the Star Trek holodeck stories, the human characters in the virtual world think just like actual people, and they can't tell that they aren't real.  (The holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager is like a stage for the entertainment of the crew members.  The computer-generated characters are like actors who are unaware of their nature.)

As the film begins, one of the software designers, Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is in the virtual world, set in the 1930's.  He comes to this world often and spends his time as a wealthy businessman, leading a luxurious life and hiring prostitutes.  But when he returns to the real world, he is murdered.  All evidence points to his partner, Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko).  Hall protests that he is innocent but can't remember where he was at the time of the murder.  

This Kafkaesque crime leads to his journey back to the 1930's virtual world to look for clues.  Then a 1930's character escapes to the real world.  Hall also meets a mysterious woman (Gretchen Mol) who may, or may not, be Fuller's daughter.

The movie reflects on the god-like powers of the designers, who can create a realistic world complete with self-aware residents.  These residents can be displaced or destroyed on a whim, but to the designers they are not real people.  What happens if these characters find out what they are?  What if the creations turn out to be better, more moral people than their creators?  What if people from different worlds fall in love?  In short, what is the difference between the morality of thinking beings that are inside a computer program as opposed to those in the real world?

This 1999 movie is rated R, and it is available on video.

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