You won't be disappointed!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I love Philip K. Dick, the author of the novel from which this film is derived, and have followed all the various film adaptations with interest for many years. Some have been very good, some less so, some faithful to at least the spirit of the source material, some less so. I was thrilled to find this on Netflix, since it is one of his major works, in my opinion. I really wanted to like it. I wanted it to be good. It was not. I honor the intention to be faithful to the book, and it was, much more so than, say, Blade Runner, although BR is by far the superior movie. But this was poorly paced, flat, plodding, monotonous, and unrealistic. I realize this last may seem odd given the plot and theme, but lots of movies are about fantastical concepts and still manage to be realistic, in the sense that they create a coherent, consistent reality around those concepts and play out the story with verve and imagination, qualities this adaption lacked. The dream sequences were cheesy. Although Alanis Morissette brought some star power to the proceedings, and she was very good, the acting was poor. The direction left weird gaps in the sequences. The seams showed in this production. One pet peeve: I realize their budget was probably small, but could they not afford a few establishing shots of Berkeley? They kept saying they were in Berkeley, and then showing shots of a city clearly not Berkeley. It's a pretty iconic location, all you need is a few shots of the campus, the campanile, and the bay. This is indicative of the lapses and lack of imagination in this adaptation of a work of supreme imagination.

...then you may like this adaptation, or at least that seems to be the general consensus. Personally while I have read most of his work, this one left me cold.A fairly slow moving alternate history drama with mediocre acting.Cinematography was dark(fitting for the story) and done fairly well.Special effects were obviously low budget and not in a good way.Production values were low.Story was potentially good but not well presented.Overall, I wouldn't recommend wasting your time on this one.

A PKD story that rather disturbingly and solidly finds its place in our own time. This movie, though low budget and stiffly acted, is a provocative, cerebral movie that dares the viewer to do what the mass media, big budget Hollywood flicks don't want the viewer to do - TO THINK.Though YMMV, I highly recommend this film though it may not be for everybody. Not spiritual/religious? That's fine - you can easily ignore the religio-Gnostic slant of this work and approach it as an thought exercise.If this movie doesn't make you think, if you can't draw a parallel to PKD's story and the events unfolding in our world today, if it doesn't make you question some long held, ingrained views in at least some capacity - then it may be a waste of your time.But if can take something away from it, if it makes you think, if it makes you question, if it perhaps changes your point of view - well, you will probably be able to chalk it up as the best spent 111 cinematic minutes of your life.

I really enjoyed this film. The performances by Shea Whigham, Jonathan Scarfe, Scott Wilson and Katheryn Winnick are all solid and ring true. Alanis Morisette is captivating as Sylvia (although she is physically different in appearance from the character in the book). Hanna Hall as the young right wing political operative Vivian Kaplan is amusingly subversive. Director/screenwriter John Alan Simon captures the mentality of the times (early 70s) about which Dick writes: The paranoia, drugs, perceived power of pop rock music to effect social change and the left wing politics. Although he moves the setting to the mid 80s, replacing the Nixon Era with that of Reagan, the issues still reverberate. The script allows enough space for Philip K. Dick's fascinating and fantastic ideas to breathe. I recommend this film. If you haven't read Philip K. Dick you will want to after seeing this film!