Neither an out-and-out actioner nor a fully realized study of the psychology of games-playing, pic is still reasonably diverting

Among other things, Avalon may be the first movie that uses contemporary Poland as a special effect.

Manages to create a haunting virtual world that's more mystical than anything the Wachowski brothers have offered us, blending the real and the imagined into a portentous cyberpunk fable.

Pointedly abstract and elusive, it is, like many of the films of Mamoru Oshii... richly visualized, gorgeously textured, and wound around issues of dream, reality, and the levels of consciousness.