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The Matrix Resurrections [SPOILERS]


SpaceChampion

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Yeah, I thought that was pretty cracking. No, the action itself was not as good as the first one, or even the second one mostly, and it wasn't as near-perfect an experience overall, but it had far more narrative drive and direction than the sequels, and clearly knew what it wanted to do (that's why I'm not bothered that there wasn't more about the machine wars etc - it'd just have piled too much stuff on the main narrative goal), and I thought the visuals and general spectacle around the action were absolutely brilliant.

Lawrence Fishburne not coming back made total sense- after all, that wasn't the real Morpheus, just a mind-wiped Neo's approximation of what he thought he remembered Morpheus to be. Hugo Weaving a bit less so, but you'd have had no mystery in the first part if it'd been him - and in any case Groff's more normal, slicker behaviour kinda suited the vibe here better, though you could see him channelling Weaving in the fight (which, apparently, was deliberate).


I would say that the in-joke about being forced into making a sequel might be causing some of the split in opinion - that part in particular makes it seem like it's gonna be a far more cynical film than it ultimately ends up being, and those who were ready to buy into that might not have appreciated the optimistic swerve.

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Oh yeah, also:
 

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I really liked that dig at incels by naming Trinity's husband 'Chad'. That was priceless ;-).

Rather brilliantly, he's played by Chad Stahelski- Keanu's stunt double on the original trilogy (also now the director of John Wick, of course).

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4 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Oh yeah, also:
 

Rather brilliantly, he's played by Chad Stahelski- Keanu's stunt double on the original trilogy (also now the director of John Wick, of course).

I feel like I'm missing something. Why is Trinity being married to a person named Chad meant to be something negative?

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The chad Chad and the virgin Keanu.


Anyway just thinking on it overnight and while it's been mentioned that the action itself wasn't up to scratch, how insane were the visuals and visual effects? Sure, nothing as mould-breaking as bullet time, but those time-freeze scenes were madness. And just in terms of cinematography etc- the use of natural light in a lot of the scenes was on point. It looked great, and I think that's somewhat being overlooked because it didn't move the paradigm the way the first one did maybe. 

Or I guess for some because they didn't want natural light in the cyberpunk, I guess?

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bleh. conservative and nostalgic, just as abjectly unnecessary as the recent spiderman

Spoiler

the real story is how the peace descended into a machine civil war. dunno why they skipped that for whatever this is.  a mystery that someone looked at this and thought it was a good idea.

 

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Have to say I'm pretty surprised by the positive reaction to the movie on here, I've seen so many negative reviews elsewhere, to the point where 'I wish I could take the blue pill so I could forget I saw this movie' has become almost a meme in itself. 

It occurred to me that this is a bit like The Force Awakens for the Matrix. Its a reboot, a remake, except that it tries to soften the blow by being open about it and making jokes at itself. But honestly that is a trick that Hollywood has been playing for years, its hard to think of too many reboots or remakes that don't make some sort of in-joke about how there are too many reboots etc. That doesn't give you a pass for making a crappy movie elsewhere and it doesn't here. All the little fan service shit that is thrown into the movie just goes to remind you how inferior this crap is. Making jokes about trench coats and bullet time just highlights that you can't take your own story seriously any more and you are almost embarrassed by it. 

Putting clips from an iconic fight scene in the middle of a bland as shit, badly directed and choreographed fight scene must be the dumbest idea I can think of. Recreating scenes from the original almost shot for shot, and managing to make them look cheaper and more amateur, makes you wonder why nobody questioned it. 

The original Matrix was and is just a groundbreaking amazing movie, the sequels go some way to fucking it up so its not so easy to get mad at this movie. But where as the SW prequels were so awful they made me glad for the new trilogy, and the latest SW movie was so bad they almost made me nostalgic for the prequels, this movie barely registers as being related to those movies. It feels like fan fiction, its so poorly made, so badly written, so ugly, so lame, so embarrassed of its own existence. 
Everything that made that original Matrix movie is absent here. There is no innovation, no technical mastery anywhere, no moments that made you stop and think and wonder about your own existence, no excitement, no passion, nothing new or interesting. 

It reminds me of the new Sex in the City show, where its the same women, just older and tireder churning out the same crap, but trying to make it relevant for our time by being edgy and talking about.. I dunno Covid or something. Maybe the original Matrix is a product of its time. It was overly earnest and serious, like a moody teenager writing poetry. This feels like a middle aged person trying to recapture their youth, but they are no so comfortable and out of touch with anything except Hollywood that they have nothing relevant to say any more. 

Maybe we can't have movies like that any more. Its so odd that it was the same time you had the Matrix and Fight club and both have created some sort of weird subculture online, but both seemed to want to say things about life and society, even if those things seem rather old and tired now. Can modern movies actually try to say anything interesting any more or are they there to just exist and get a view count. This movie is really just a reminder that that was a bit of a golden year for movies and we are now in the dark ages.

 

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9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Have to say I'm pretty surprised by the positive reaction to the movie on here, I've seen so many negative reviews elsewhere, to the point where 'I wish I could take the blue pill so I could forget I saw this movie' has become almost a meme in itself. 

It occurred to me that this is a bit like The Force Awakens for the Matrix. Its a reboot, a remake, except that it tries to soften the blow by being open about it and making jokes at itself. But honestly that is a trick that Hollywood has been playing for years, its hard to think of too many reboots or remakes that don't make some sort of in-joke about how there are too many reboots etc. That doesn't give you a pass for making a crappy movie elsewhere and it doesn't here. All the little fan service shit that is thrown into the movie just goes to remind you how inferior this crap is. Making jokes about trench coats and bullet time just highlights that you can't take your own story seriously any more and you are almost embarrassed by it. 

Putting clips from an iconic fight scene in the middle of a bland as shit, badly directed and choreographed fight scene must be the dumbest idea I can think of. Recreating scenes from the original almost shot for shot, and managing to make them look cheaper and more amateur, makes you wonder why nobody questioned it. 

The original Matrix was and is just a groundbreaking amazing movie, the sequels go some way to fucking it up so its not so easy to get mad at this movie. But where as the SW prequels were so awful they made me glad for the new trilogy, and the latest SW movie was so bad they almost made me nostalgic for the prequels, this movie barely registers as being related to those movies. It feels like fan fiction, its so poorly made, so badly written, so ugly, so lame, so embarrassed of its own existence. 
Everything that made that original Matrix movie is absent here. There is no innovation, no technical mastery anywhere, no moments that made you stop and think and wonder about your own existence, no excitement, no passion, nothing new or interesting. 

It reminds me of the new Sex in the City show, where its the same women, just older and tireder churning out the same crap, but trying to make it relevant for our time by being edgy and talking about.. I dunno Covid or something. Maybe the original Matrix is a product of its time. It was overly earnest and serious, like a moody teenager writing poetry. This feels like a middle aged person trying to recapture their youth, but they are no so comfortable and out of touch with anything except Hollywood that they have nothing relevant to say any more. 

Maybe we can't have movies like that any more. Its so odd that it was the same time you had the Matrix and Fight club and both have created some sort of weird subculture online, but both seemed to want to say things about life and society, even if those things seem rather old and tired now. Can modern movies actually try to say anything interesting any more or are they there to just exist and get a view count. This movie is really just a reminder that that was a bit of a golden year for movies and we are now in the dark ages.

 

I really enjoyed it.  Making a groundbreaking film from the same material twice is quite a bit to ask.  I think acknowledging that inability expressly was an interesting choice as was linking Trinity and Neo as a dualistic god figure for the “new Matrix”.  

The harsh division between those who enjoyed the film and those who disliked it is an interesting phenomenon in its own right.

:)

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2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I really enjoyed it.  Making a groundbreaking film from the same material twice is quite a bit to ask.  I think acknowledging that inability expressly was an interesting choice as was linking Trinity and Neo as a dualistic god figure for the “new Matrix”.  

The harsh division between those who enjoyed the film and those who disliked it is an interesting phenomenon in its own right.

:)

It does remind me of the split reaction to the Matrix sequels. Most people thought they were turd garbage, but there was a loyal fanbase who saw something interesting in there and were able to mentally ignore all the crap because they saw some philosophical gems in there. 

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4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It does remind me of the split reaction to the Matrix sequels. Most people thought they were turd garbage, but there was a loyal fanbase who saw something interesting in there and were able to mentally ignore all the crap because they saw some philosophical gems in there. 

I disliked “Reloaded” and “Revolutions”.  I liked this one.

:)

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8 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I disliked “Reloaded” and “Revolutions”.  I liked this one.

:)

Thing is, I kind of understand why people like the sequels, even if I don’t like them. I don’t understand what there is to like about this movie. It is devoid of likeable stuff 

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46 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It occurred to me that this is a bit like The Force Awakens for the Matrix. Its a reboot, a remake, except that it tries to soften the blow by being open about it and making jokes at itself. But honestly that is a trick that Hollywood has been playing for years, its hard to think of too many reboots or remakes that don't make some sort of in-joke about how there are too many reboots etc. That doesn't give you a pass for making a crappy movie elsewhere and it doesn't here. All the little fan service shit that is thrown into the movie just goes to remind you how inferior this crap is. Making jokes about trench coats and bullet time just highlights that you can't take your own story seriously any more and you are almost embarrassed by it. 

This is a false and vapid comparison.  Resurrections isn't just making some in-jokes to acknowledge the recursiveness and lack of originality of reboots - but rather is actually a commentary and theme of the film on how that's what the last twenty years have devolved into, and not just in terms of Hollywood.

Kinda reminds me of South Park's Cartoon Wars where Cartman is livid anytime anyone compares them to Family Guy by insisting "our jokes have a point that serve telling an actual story!"

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9 minutes ago, DMC said:

This is a false and vapid comparison.  Resurrections isn't just making some in-jokes to acknowledge the recursiveness and lack of originality of reboots - but rather is actually a commentary and theme of the film on how that's what the last twenty years have devolved into, and not just in terms of Hollywood.

Kinda reminds me of South Park's Cartoon Wars where Cartman is livid anytime anyone compares them to Family Guy by insisting "our jokes have a point that serve telling an actual story!"

I mean that is the movies excuse for doing it, but really all it’s doing if playing off the audiences recognition of the original movie and trying to get points for it. I never felt it succeeded in being anything other than a lazy attempt to gain nostalgia.

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5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I mean that is the movies excuse for doing it, but really all it’s doing if playing off the audiences recognition of the original movie and trying to get points for it. I never felt it succeeded in being anything other than a lazy attempt to gain nostalgia.

You are certainly entitled to that opinion.

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3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I mean that is the movies excuse for doing it, but really all it’s doing if playing off the audiences recognition of the original movie and trying to get points for it. I never felt it succeeded in being anything other than a lazy attempt to gain nostalgia.

The movie is clearly Lana trying to reclaim - and reiterate - what the original was actually about from all those that have bastardized it over the past twenty years into the opposite of what it was trying to say; as well as update what "the matrix" would be representative and reflect now as compared to the nineties.  It's not surprising that approach isn't everyone's cup of tea, disappoints the expectations of some, and outright enrages others.

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14 minutes ago, DMC said:

The movie is clearly Lana trying to reclaim - and reiterate - what the original was actually about from all those that have bastardized it over the past twenty years into the opposite of what it was trying to say; as well as update what "the matrix" would be representative and reflect now as compared to the nineties.  It's not surprising that approach isn't everyone's cup of tea, disappoints the expectations of some, and outright enrages others.

The problem is none of that makes it a good movie. I’m not sure what possible point about reboots and modernity came be made by simply doing all the things that modern reboots do. Simply acknowledging you are doing it doesn’t excuse it, even if you try to crowbar it into the story on purpose. 
 

It’s like they made some clever meta commentary on the awful blandness  of modern action scenes by inserting a number of bland awful actions scenes in
 

I get that some people seem to think it’s clever, I don’t. That’s why it reminds me of the discussions about the sequels, where that fan base maintained something obviously garbage was good because they saw something nobody else did ( they were red pilled?!)

Maybe you guys all got red pilled

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The comparison to TFA doesn't make sense coz that just repeated the plot structure and quite a lot of the beats of the older films. In this case, while sure, it did both remake and directly clip scenes from the original and whether you enjoyed that or not is entirely subjective, the actual plot, structure, what it's aiming for narratively, themes, the nature of the antagonist - all of that is very different. You could make the argument that it's less different from other stories than the OG Matrix was, that it's a bit more conventional and certainly a lot more sentimental in that sense - but as a repeat of the original in the same way TFA was, it's just not. 

 

I mean, even the existence of those scene-remakes and clips themselves are a direct opposite- the entirety of the marketing and the first half of the first film are that no-one knew what the Matrix was. Whereas in this one it's not just the audience who knows but everyone in the film including the pod-people trapped by it.  

It goes right down to the visuals of the thing, from the grittied-up and tinted look of the original to the bright colours and natural lighting here. 


Like, I'm sorry, I can see plenty of reasons to not like this if someone didn't buy into what it was selling, but 'it's just another rehash/template film' is a lazy critique that doesn't actually take into account the film itself. 

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13 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I get that some people seem to think it’s clever, I don’t. That’s why it reminds me of the discussions about the sequels, where that fan base maintained something obviously garbage was good because they saw something nobody else did ( they were red pilled?!)

Maybe you guys all got red pilled

It's quite amusing that you can't seem to handle the fact that others enjoyed the film and its message.  As for 2 and 3, I liked them while recognizing their flaws, but I think this was significantly better (while still not approaching he original).

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11 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

The comparison to TFA doesn't make sense coz that just repeated the plot structure and quite a lot of the beats of the older films. In this case, while sure, it did both remake and directly clip scenes from the original and whether you enjoyed that or not is entirely subjective, the actual plot, structure, what it's aiming for narratively, themes, the nature of the antagonist - all of that is very different. You could make the argument that it's less different from other stories than the OG Matrix was, that it's a bit more conventional and certainly a lot more sentimental in that sense - but as a repeat of the original in the same way TFA was, it's just not. 

 

I mean, even the existence of those scene-remakes and clips themselves are a direct opposite- the entirety of the marketing and the first half of the first film are that no-one knew what the Matrix was. Whereas in this one it's not just the audience who knows but everyone in the film including the pod-people trapped by it.  

It goes right down to the visuals of the thing, from the grittied-up and tinted look of the original to the bright colours and natural lighting here. 


Like, I'm sorry, I can see plenty of reasons to not like this if someone didn't buy into what it was selling, but 'it's just another rehash/template film' is a lazy critique that doesn't actually take into account the film itself. 

This movie also has a very similar plot structure, especially first half, in fact it literally recreates scenes from that first movie and it’s almost beat for beat at times. It tries to excuse it by knowingly winking at the audience but it’s still doing it 

 

Bringing up the visual style also sums it up. Having the new version be more colourful and bright might on the surface look like clever commentary, but the visuals of the movie are bland and uninspired, looking like every other movie out there. Is that on purpose or because the cinematographer is rubbish and it was all really rushed? It feels like a lot of the failings of the movies are given a pass because some fans want to believe there is a clever reason for them. I personally don’t buy it. If you do then that’s ok, I guess I’ll just stay blue pilled

 

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Also:

 

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Maybe we can't have movies like that any more. Its so odd that it was the same time you had the Matrix and Fight club and both have created some sort of weird subculture online, but both seemed to want to say things about life and society, even if those things seem rather old and tired now. Can modern movies actually try to say anything interesting any more or are they there to just exist and get a view count. This movie is really just a reminder that that was a bit of a golden year for movies and we are now in the dark ages.




This is particular complain is especially odd since a week or so ago you were tearing into The Last Duel for saying something you didn't think its setting was appropriate for it to say. 

And sure, there are a lot of big production line blockbusters now, more than there were then, but there are also still lots of meaningful films with messages and things to say. Some good, some bad, some meh, but they haven't gone away. Even a film as obviously designed primarily as a good time as The Harder They Fall was saying things.

Also you've managed to make a grandad 'get orf my lawn' post and a teen angst 'craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawling in my skin' post in the paragraph so props to you for that. 

 

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

This movie also has a very similar plot structure, especially first half. It tries to excuse it by knowingly winking at the audience but it’s still doing it 

'Especially first half' is doing an awful lot of work here, but even there, the very fact that it is winking at the audience means it can't be the same structure. Like okay, if you simplify it as broadly as 'ship captain tries to get Neo out of the Matrix', you could make that case, but what the film allows the audience to know is a big part of the structure and it's just completely differently set up here. 

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