Matrix Revolutions

I don't know, the second one pretty much holds up until Neo finds out the "secret" of the Matrix, at which point it gets kind of retarded.

Yeah I'll basically watch the entire second one and enjoy it up until the trucks hit each other and blow up. The rest is inconsequential

well i think they weren't planning a sequel to complete this story, is what i meant. they were hedging their bets in both directions. obviously the door was left open. kind of like the first star wars, which could have made sense as a single film too. but i think that particular universe allowed for more possibilities than the matrix series.

give me the car chase from reloaded and that's it imo

That car chase is one of the greatest things ever filmed, is the thing.

exploding digital vagina scene > car chase

I don't know if they clearly meant for a sequel, but I think the first one ends well, similar to Terminator 2's ominous ending where the heroes have won, but the future remains uncertain. Agree with Omar that it could have been a standalone film, and probably should have remained that way.

As inferior as the sequels are, at least there are some fun fight scenes and chases, I guess, especially in the second one. One problem I had was that compared to the first one, all the fights seemed really too "soft". Like in the first one, that scene where Morpheus is getting his ass whooped by Smith before they capture him, there is this wonderfully crunchy moment where his head gets put through a toilet seat. I can't really think of any moments in the second two movies that had that kind of impact, despite all the bullets, flying and zipping around and cascading building collapses - the CG had just gotten far overused.

^Wait, what?

I've said this elsewhere but it was really disappointing to me that after adding all this other fairly interesting and exotic stuff to the universe they proceeded to do nothing with it in Revolutions. Hey there's this whole other underworld of rogue apps in the matrix that do weird things outside the bounds of the agents or the humans, but nevermind, we're setting the finale in the boring wasteland where magic doesn't exist.

Getting Leigh Brackett to write Empire is the big plus for that film (although this depends on whether you believe she wrote it, I guess.)

Basically there was a possiblity of doing something interesting with a Matrix sequel, but these guys were probably not the ones to write it.

Also its funny how the movie franchise that re-made Keanu's career features him traveling between realities through a telephone, just like the far more superior Bill & Ted series.

As I was watching this last night I asked me friend "Why are they all wearing sunglasses?" Then I remembered this...

i think you know your well has run dry when your idea of taking it to another level is just adding an extra couple hundred cgi hugo weavings

Yeah they really lost the plot on the fight stuff sadly which was my favorite part of the first film.

Btw the future is totally going to be the Matrix but without any clear distinction between human and robots due to nanotechnology and genetic programming.

At first I thought that said garlic programming, which would be cool.

yes we know exactly how the future is going to be

I think the first movie is pretty much perfect. The story as continued in the second and third films makes sense and is not hermetic if you watch with a close eye, but it's a terribly boring story.

Such a terrible idea to write a you-must-watch-closely supersubtle plot to accompany a noisy bludgeoning actioner.

decided early on that i wasn't gonna see pts 2+3, has been easiest ever resolution to keep

Matrix Resolutions

Just read this website and the story is finally making some sense to me.

http://www.thematrix101.com/reloaded/meaning.php
http://www.thematrix101.com/revolutions/meaning.php

But if I had to take a test on the the plot of the Matrix trilogy I would fail.

it's not that the over-arcing story didn't make sense, it's that it was, as Hoos said, boring.

I liked the planet o' Agent Smiths OK, but this was pretty much donkey balls all around.

Even having enjoyed Reloaded more than most, to my mind this is the most anticlimactic series of films ever, amirite? By "series," I do not mean standalone features that have unnecessary cash-in sequels tacked on, but films which were intended as serials from the outset.

What's good about the first film is the Agent Smith / Cypher dynamic. One wants in, the other wants out.

Cypher may well be a villain but he also appears to be the only one who has grasped *the basic reality of the situation*, indeed, and

Smith's "humanisation" by the matrix is an entertaining reversal of the usual Terminator / Star Trek-style "what does it mean ... to be HUMAN?" business. Smith's answer: it SUCKS, it makes me BAD AT MY JOB.

Also the 1st film has considerable (surely intentional!) comedy value which is very much helped along by the utter humourlessness of Morpheus at al. As of Reloaded, the humourlessness takes over.

As of Reloaded, the humourlessness takes over.

oh this is some bullshit

reloaded is chockablock with all manner of gags

in fact the abandonment of haw-haws in the third act is probably another one of the main reasons I have no use for it after the trucks

apocalypse haw

Smith's "humanisation" by the matrix is an entertaining reversal of the usual Terminator / Star Trek-style "what does it mean ... to be HUMAN?" business. Smith's answer: it SUCKS, it makes me BAD AT MY JOB

This is a good point, the more I think about it now the more it seems like it was supposed to be the humans and machines reaching a compromise, what with the program Rama talking about love and the "human" Morpheus talking about machines and people needing each other. I wish there was more of this dialog than mechs-blasting-zillions of squid-bots but what the hey...

To me the whole "Neo is the One, no Neo is not the One, wait Neo IS the One but he can't change anything, wait Neo is controlling the real world with his mind" was the most confusing bit. Hopefully seeing these Animatrix things will clear up some of the timeline for me..

in fact the abandonment of haw-haws in the third act is probably another one of the main reasons I have no use for it after the trucks

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, December 9, 2008 1:53 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest

Come on, you'd miss out on Persephone's perfect tits! I'm glad she's in all the scenes with the silly French dude so I can just tune him out cos otherwise he'd be pretty annoying.

I thought the trucks happened after Persephone's tits...?

he thinks I'm referring to the thread title instead of the third act of Reloaded

Wow, I am watching the Second Renaissance right now and it is amazing, shocking, and mind-bending. Much much much better than those sequels. I'm tempted to say I like it better than the Matrix but it's too short!

Beyond and Matriculations are even better but The Second Renaissance could've made for a great Matrix prequel perhaps

My memory of Revolutions is more or less three solid hours of gurning grunts strapped into comically large exoskeletons shooting ridiculously many rounds of ammunition into endless streams of those squid robot thingys. Punctuated by a brief interlude of cartoon Keanu battling a thousand cartoon Mr Smiths, animated with the style and quality of Hanna Barbera.

The Second Renaissance is by far the best of Animatrix imo

omfg those exoskeletons were totally ridiculous. this is what happens when you try to make mecha vaguely realistic - you wind up with a stupid ass artillery platform that's slower and more fragile than one that's on wheels, and as a bonus in Revolutions they also don't carry enough ammunition to last more than two minutes. That shit was ridiculous with the fucking handcart.

they should've been at the rave in the mech suits

its funny to me that everybody talks about the multi-Smith CGI that I didn't even notice at the time. What really stood out to me was the one long slow zoom on a rendered man-in-mech as the Sentinels began streaming in

i was like "wtf this looks like a final fantasy vii cutscene why isn't everyone laughing at this"

Too busy crying

I tend to contrast this with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies: in both cases I had faith coming out of the second one, and the third made me a fool with its incoherent mess, but At World's End at least had a sandship/Singapore/Keith Richards - lots of details to keep the attention. Also, you got the impression that they at least had a plot at some point before chopping bits out of it. Both of them have big spectacular endings that are inferior to the smaller setpieces in the second one (highway scene/three-way swordfight).

Also, I have watched At World's End twice, and nothing on this planet could make me sit through Revolutions again.

At World's End probably has a better script and acting but I didn't enjoy it as much as Revolutions at the time (i may do on rewatch tho - not that i want to see either again tho)

At World's End >>>>>>>>>> Revolutions

The 4 years in which The Matrix was worshipped and looked at as the next Star Wars or whatever were unbearable, and I'm eternally grateful to the sequels for being so shitty that even the fanboys jumped ship.

omfg those exoskeletons were totally ridiculous. this is what happens when you try to make mecha vaguely realistic - you wind up with a stupid ass artillery platform that's slower and more fragile than one that's on wheels, and as a bonus in Revolutions they also don't carry enough ammunition to last more than two minutes. That shit was ridiculous with the fucking handcart.

― El Tomboto, Wednesday, December 10, 2008 12:01 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

film criticism very much in character

"New Star Wars" sounds fair enough - well put together, amaaazing special effects for its time, vague mystical understructure. We just didn't have to wait 30 years to feel all the blood drain from our bodies.

Oh yeah also annoying fuckers claiming the original was "never that good" :)

i liked the original when it came out but i didn't love it

Oh yeah also annoying fuckers claiming the original was "never that good" :)
Seriously, no matter how annoying the other two got, the first one still holds up very well.

i can see why the sequels might ruin the first film for people, tbh. there are some minor things in the original that are indicative of the coming shitstorm and now seem lamer.