SummaryWhat if we are living in a simulation, and the world as we know it is not real? To tackle this mind-bending idea, acclaimed filmmaker Rodney Ascher (ROOM 237, THE NIGHTMARE) uses a noted speech from Philip K. Dick to dive down the rabbit hole of science, philosophy, and conspiracy theory. Leaving no stone unturned in exploring the unprov...
SummaryWhat if we are living in a simulation, and the world as we know it is not real? To tackle this mind-bending idea, acclaimed filmmaker Rodney Ascher (ROOM 237, THE NIGHTMARE) uses a noted speech from Philip K. Dick to dive down the rabbit hole of science, philosophy, and conspiracy theory. Leaving no stone unturned in exploring the unprov...
Ascher’s appropriately discombobulating stew of queasiness, comedy, and terror seems well-cued to the subject matter, even while missing a certain editorial sharpness that might have brought some of its notions into greater clarity.
Using movie clips, animation and news footage, Ascher creates his own alternate universe in A Glitch in the Matrix and explores phenomena such as the Mandela Effect, a real-life wonder in which masses of unconnected people claim to “remember” something that is simply not true.
A truly cool concept that fuses religion and spirituality with simulation theory and that what you see is partly due to a program that has been put by someone. It shows how deeply sophisticated and connected we as human beings are and could lead people to believe that howook on the exterior reflects from the interior and that is what is meant to be is meant to be like fate
Is our reality a genuine phenomenon unto itself, or is it the product of some elaborate computer-generated program? While this is a question that's fundamentally impossible to answer at this point in time, it nevertheless raises an intriguing possibility under the heading of "simulation theory," a subject explored in varying degrees of success in this visually captivating and often-mesmerizing documentary. The content of director Rodney Ascher's big "what if" offering could use better focus in spots (especially in the anecdotal and speculative testimony of its avatar-costumed "witnesses"), and the film could definitely stand to place less emphasis on the dark side of its subject matter (particularly in a questionable and overlong recounting of the role it played in a troubling criminal case). However, when it comes to examining such notions as deja vu, synchronicities and the Mandela effect, as well as the influential writings of such profound thinkers as Plato and author Philip K. ****, particularly in the roles that they have played in the development of this notion, the film is truly at its best. For the skeptical out there, it may be easy to chalk up this material to stoner nonsense, silly speculation or oh so much intellectual ****, and those with such an outlook would be wise to skip this one and mull over their close-minded ideas in seclusion. But, for those who are amenable to opening their minds to potentially revolutionary perspectives on the nature of existence, this is a good primer. The implications, from things as simple as creating better video games to as complex as better understanding the very functioning of reality, are potential startling and exciting. And who would want to miss out on that?
A Glitch In The Matrix unfolds as a flood of exposition and conjecture, accompanied by a gaudy infotainment montage of video-game footage, movie excerpts, and computer-animated recreations.
A Glitch in the Matrix is so much about conveying its big idea that it misses the smaller parts—it oddly seems limited in its overall mission, documenting this mix of philosophy, sci-fi, and religion without helping us understand its believers.
The film suffers from the over-interpreting mental “glitch,” eagerly connecting coincidence, mental illness, drug experiences, religious awe, computer gaming, and science fiction movies in an over-arching pattern.
A Glitch in the Matrix’s incuriosity and unstructured approach to its material at best mirror its subjects’ modes of thinking; at worst, it is little more than a voyeuristic freak show.
If you insist on watching “A Glitch in the Matrix”, make sure to turn it off after the first 30 minutes. That was as long as it managed to have anything of interest to say, and from that point on it was just killing time by letting people with absolutely no expertise in the field prattle on with their meaningless accounts. I give it a D, just don’t bother.
I went on and on hearing about the depth of the theory this documentary explores, and how you question your reality so much that it's inevitable to think that nothing we experience is real.
Verdict? Nah, reality just ****, and that's it, and that's how it has been since the dawn of mankind, we've only evolved so much technologically as to get to the point where we still have to question that, and surprisingly for too many, reaching that resolution is still impossible.
What I see in this story is something that I've seen in many other situations involving religion and spirituality, and that's the fear of people's own irrelevance.
To understand that most likely your life, or rather the act of living, means absolutely nothing once your body and mind expire.
And that's a terrifying concept for billions of people, so they look for other answers instead of facing that crude reality.
That's what A Glitch in the Matrix is: People who took something very seriously that just isn't there.