The Illuminerdi’s review for the documentary, A Glitch in the Matrix, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2021.
What if our world is just a computer simulation? This is the question that director Rodney Asher tackles in his newest documentary A Glitch in the Matrix. Obviously we don’t get an answer to this question, but the documentary also fails to give any credible information about the topic.
The filmmaker plays around with a lot of different animation styles to make the 108 minutes visually interesting and he does achieve that. However, the runtime feels stretched as there is only around 40 minutes of interesting theories and anecdotes.
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We get snippets of interviews of Elon Musk and Phillip K. Dick, author of many acclaimed sci-fi novels, including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheeps, which Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is based on. But on the other hand, we get a ton of interview footage of miscellaneous masked people, theorizing about the topic and buying into A Glitch in the Matrix‘s theory.
This works for the first 40 minutes, as the film clues you into why these people have these grand beliefs. Additionally, the way the animated sequences underline their stories is pretty interesting, but the longer this goes, the weirder and weirder the theories get. Until you ultimately begin to lose interest as you start to realize that you won’t get any real information out of the documentary.
A Glitch in the Matrix has an unique visual approach to an interesting, yet unsolvable topic. Which ultimately doesn’t make for a good documentary, due to the lack of any real, credible information.
2,5/5
A Glitch in the Matrix is available on VOD.
A Glitch in the Matrix Synopsis
What 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 Asher (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 unprovable, the film uses contemporary cultural touchstones like THE MATRIX, interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, and a wide array of voices, expert and amateur alike. If simulation theory is not science fiction but fact, and life is a video game being played by some unknowable entity, then who are we, really? A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX attempts to find out.
What do you guys think of A Glitch in the Matrix? Are you planning to watch it? Have you seen it already, if so how did you like it? Let’s discuss everything in the comments down below and on our Twitter.
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