Eww. 

Really, just... ewww.

One thing you've got to say about eXistenZ - it does keep you involved with the increasingly bizarre plot.   But - eww.

It's about this game, y'see.  Presumably we're some time into the future, because games are played in virtual reality.  Most people have a "bio-port" inserted into their spines to allow them to be plugged into the game and into a new reality, and as the story opens a group of gamers has been gathered to test-drive the unreleased latest game from legendary game designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh). 

But a person in the crowd, for obscure reasons, pulls out a gun and shoots up the place, and the next thing you know, Allegra is on the run with her security guard Ted Pikul (Jude Law).   But of more concern to Allegra is that her game, eXistenZ, may have been damaged.   The game resides in a 'pod', this repulsive pink squelchy thing, and is the only copy anywhere.

Okay, hold it right there.  The movie viewer's contract offering a 'willing suspension of disbelief' is not absolute.  In other words, if you want us to buy into your premise, don't insult our intelligence and make the premise ridiculous.  I will accept that there is only one copy of a highly anticipated piece of software that the star designer has been working on for five years and her company has sunk tens of millions of dollars into, if and only if you provide a reason.

This movie provides no reason.  Strike one.

So Allegra and Ted need to plug into the game and check it out.  On the run, with people trying to kill them for reasons that are incomprehensible, they're going to check out of reality and leave themselves completely vulnerable in order to assess possible damage to a game.  

What.  ever.  Strike two.

They start playing the game, and first stop in the virtual reality is... a  game shop, where they are given new pods that dump them into yet another reality.

Okay.  Strike three. 

But continuing on (if you must), this level of reality is in a grim and grimy factory where mutant reptiles are carved up to harvest parts for game pods.   A mysterious character on the assembly line tells Ted (also an assembly line worker in this version of reality) to go to lunch at the Chinese restaurant and order the 'special'. 

The special turns out to be a repulsive collection of mystery bits (more mutant reptiles), which Ted eats while Allegra holds her nose, so he can salvage the bones to assemble into a gun which he uses to shoot the waiter.   I feel compelled here to borrow a catch phrase from Dave Barry to assure you that "I am not making this up."

There is much more of the same sort of thing.

eXistenZ appears to be a Message Movie, but damned if I can figure out what the message is.   There are rebels involved who are fighting for 'reality', but what's puzzling is that reality needs rebels.  The few moments of reality that we see appears to indicate a grim and rundown future, but if reality is grim and rundown because people are retreating into virtual reality rather than maintaining and improving on reality, why is the virtual reality every bit as grim and rundown as the real reality?   Why would anyone even want to leave reality to play this game? 

Especially considering what they serve as food there.

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