I hope the rest of you don't see this because, well, it wasn't great. I wasn't HORRIBLE, but it was a giant let down. There's no way it could have pleased everyone, and I've heard there have been folks silently praising this as a decent film, or at least entertaining.
First off, the Neo as the Christ figure was an ok story line, as long as it wasn't handed down with the subtlety of Sherman tank. The Wachowski brothers are very religious or at least very heavy into spiritualism and it shows in their movies, dripping and oozing with imagery and subtext. I was fairly certain at some point a chorus of Hosannas was about to break out above the industrial pounding.
I can complain all I want about this trilogy, but I'd be swimming in hypocrisy. I liked the story, I liked the fight scenes, I liked the special effects. The problem is, I liked them in Star Wars and Alien and Lord of the Rings. Yes Matrix changed the way films are made, but it was the first movie that did it. These latest installments are just so much after thought. There was an attempt to answer at least some of the questions, but to answer a question with a question is not an answer, it's a crappy way to get seven more dollars out of Drool Q. Public. Any movie that lists a character called Deus Ex Machina is just begging to upset people. I left no closer to understanding the story line then when I walked in.
That is however until I was able to process the film a bit, let it stew around in my head for a little while as bits of all 3 movies fell into place. I played a little of the Spaz-tacular Enter The Matrix game, hoping to glean a little more of the continuity, but it was SO bad I didn't play past the first few levels. Even most of the Animatrix was weird and goofy enough not to be bothered with. This leads me to think that the first film was SO cool and such a good idea, but it could have stood ALONE, by itself, for all time. There didn't need to be a sequel, did there? Was there a need to have it all wrapped up? They explained it to us. War between man and machine, the Matrix is a program, Neo's there to get rid of it. Leaving us with him destroying Agent Smith was good enough for me, good way to end it. But no, now we have to live through Zion Dance Party, The Death of Trinity, 150 Tons of Metal and Shell Casings, Blind Neo, and some of the worst writing, acting and directing I've seen outside of high school. A friend commented that Matrix: Revolutions was like watching Blade Runner, Superman and Dallas all rolled into one meaningless story and given to a couple of fan boys with an unlimited budget.
Now I don't want to totally down this movie, there were high points. Ian Bliss was great as Bane, Jada Pinkett Smith I could watch in anything, there's something stoic, sexy and urban about her. She had some crap lines to deliver. I liked seeing all the horror of the machine's final invasion of Zion and seeing the mountain defense around the machine city as Neo and Trinity approached. Sati and her family were good and their scenes were pretty well done, if not long. That was the main problem I think, is that most if not all the scenes in the movie went on WAY too long. Maybe the movie was ghost directed by Lorne Green and he's trying to make an SNL move towards totally blowing a good concept by beating his audience over the head with more words and lines than we really need. Does Trinity have to babble so much when she's dying? She sounded like 5 year old getting home from her first day of school and having so much to tell you just tune it out after a while. There were actually giggles in the theater while she was doing her Hamlet audition.
They handled Gloria Foster's death as well as could be expected. Some thrown in story about them needing to sell her "shell" so the last exile could be freed, but then she got another shell. It seemed over looked as it was a big part of the story in the end, but something that may not have needed telling had she not died.
A couple more high points. One, the preview for Troy starring Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana. The preview looked SO cool, if you can find it, watch it. It was stellar.
The other high point, for the first time in my life I was first in line for a movie. I got there 2 hours ahead of time, which for Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Spidey or X-Men it would have been too late by then. So with a bafflement I can only assume was the result of years of inhaling faux butter fumes, the ticket attendant said they weren't making a line yet. 30 mins later when I asked again he said go ahead and I took my place, the only place, at the head of what was to be a fairly long line. What was funny about this, was the ticket guy and I spoke at least 3, 4 maybe 5 times. On the last time we talked, I had gone outside to find some friends and was coming back in, at this point he ripped my ticket and told me where the line was forming. I was sitting 10 feet from him for 60 minutes and talked to him repeatedly about where the line was.
I'd love to go off on this longer, but arguing how much of a dork the guy was as I'm relishing my being first in line for a movie is a little two faced. Let's just say it was my first, and it was a good feeling as I walked into the theater slowly, knowing that my pace dictated the pace of all behind me and I was in fact able to pick, out of all the seats, which was to be mine.
It was a fine day. Then the movie started.
No comments:
Post a Comment