eXistenZ

By RICHARD CORLISS

In this virtual-reality game, the game-pod looks like an animal kidney, and the plug (ugh) goes into a hole in your back. No big deal, says the game's creator (Jennifer Jason Leigh): "They do it in malls; it's like having your ears pierced." She might be a stand-in for the writer-director, who in Scanners, Videodrome, Crash and The Fly has dealt creepily and eloquently with the disintegration of mind and body. eXistenZ, where Leigh and Jude Law get into a virtual reality game and can't get out, is more modest than its current twin, The Matrix, but it pulses with a furtive fury that's pure Cronenberg. Like the virtual game he plays on us, the film is weird, it's addictive, and Lord, it's alive!

--By Richard Corliss