The Matrix

[burnmotherfucker!]

New trailer is nice. I know people really didn't care for the sequels but I always thought they were unfairly panned. Sure some of the imagery wasn't up to par and there was definitely some cringe worthy filler scenes (like Jada being told 100 times how shes a better driver than the other dude). I'm actually kinda apprehensive about whether or not this one will be a letdown and not live up. I'm going in with low expectations for sure. And the fact Warner is just slapping this up on HBO MAX day one doesn't increase my confidence in it. But then again, when have they ever known what a good movie was?

Anyways, seeing a few folks in here mention the original trilogy being confusing got me wondering, just what is confusing about it? I mean yeah it dabbled in some philosophical ideas but for the most part I thought it was straight forward, or maybe I just saw them too many times? Perhaps it was confusing and I have just forgotten since I haven't watched them all in quite a while.

Throw some stuff out there and maybe we can iron it out before the new movie drops.

[sonic_discord]

New trailer is nice. I know people really didn't care for the sequels but I always thought they were unfairly panned.

Agreed. Somewhat like Prometheus or The Dark Knight Rises, I don't feel they deserve the amount of criticism they typically get from most people. They're competent and entertaining movies, but they aren't as "tight" and lack that big "holy shit" idea the first one had. Are they as good as the original? Of course not. Sequels rarely live up to the initial installment (yes, there are some notable exceptions).

And the fact Warner is just slapping this up on HBO MAX day one doesn't increase my confidence in it.

That decision was made by Warner nearly a year ago and affected ALL of their movies being released in 2021, not just this one. It's not a sign of a lack of confidence in this film's box office potential.

[allegate]

And the fact Warner is just slapping this up on HBO MAX day one doesn't increase my confidence in it.

Sorry, I waltzed right by this earlier. Did you not hear the announcement from Warner about this earlier in the year? And all the fallout from that decision?

I mean, I know I'm very online and especially with movies but this got play in a lot of places, not just this dinky thread or some esoteric YouTube channels.

I mean, Warner boy himself Christopher Nolan told Warner to stuff it and he's making a movie for Universal now.

[burnmotherfucker!]

Agreed. Somewhat like Prometheus or The Dark Knight Rises, I don't feel they deserve the amount of criticism they typically get from most people. They're competent and entertaining movies, but they aren't as "tight" and lack that big "holy shit" idea the first one had. Are they as good as the original? Of course not. Sequels rarely live up to the initial installment (yes, there are some notable exceptions).

Agree completely. They are not the original but they were also never going to be. Finding out every thing in life that exists is a lie is the biggest "holy shit" possible, it was never going to be topped just continuing the story. Makes me wonder where they're going with this one. Maybe they do the whole, everything we thought we learned was also part of the lie. But even then it's not going to land the way the first film did. I know I may be in the minority but one of the things I liked about the sequels is that they asked some philosophical questions and didn't always provide answers to those questions. I hope they do more of that.

[burnmotherfucker!]

Sorry, I waltzed right by this earlier. Did you not hear the announcement from Warner about this earlier in the year? And all the fallout from that decision?

Yeah, I have hbo max and all haha. Sorry I should have explained further I guess.

Most of the movies that got released day and date made sense to me given the covid fuckstorm we're all living under. The only other one that made me pause a bit was WW84 because of how well received the first one was. Then the movie came out and sucked and it made more sense in retrospect. Even Suicide Squad made sense to me because of how universally hated the first one was so why not put it up on streaming. And even though that one was good it tanked at the box office(at least, for what a movie with Harley Quinn should make). Some may argue Dune, fair enough but I never read the book so I could care less. And now I'll come to the point...

This is THE FUCKING MATRIX we're talking about here. Would Disney put Star Wars episode 10 or Avengers Reboot up on streaming day and date? Fuck no. And yeah the Matrix is R rated and not for as wide an audience but its still a franchise that changed the game to the point of being in everyone's vocabulary. It just seems like if they had any faith in the script at all someone at Warner would have said "Ok for all these movies but hold up with the Matrix, summer 2022 for that one."

This was supposed to reboot a franchise where even the one people didn't like made 200 million. With an R rating. In 2003. Only 6 months after Matrix 2 was released. In five days.

Just makes me scratch my head is all. But that's a regular occurrence with how WB handles their big films.

[allegate]

Agree completely. They are not the original but they were also never going to be. Finding out every thing in life that exists is a lie is the biggest "holy shit" possible, it was never going to be topped just continuing the story. Makes me wonder where they're going with this one. Maybe they do the whole, everything we thought we learned was also part of the lie. But even then it's not going to land the way the first film did. I know I may be in the minority but one of the things I liked about the sequels is that they asked some philosophical questions and didn't always provide answers to those questions. I hope they do more of that.

so something like what people were thinking at the end of the second movie, after Neo could affect the machines in the 'real' world?

[burnmotherfucker!]

so something like what people were thinking at the end of the second movie, after Neo could affect the machines in the 'real' world?

Well yeah I think that could be one example. They never really explored that very much though. I mean was Neo just able to affect the machine's code? If that was the case why was he seeing things in those heat pattern type images? Or was it just setting up the potential plot of Zion and the "real world" also being part of some system? I mean it could be a whole other system of control that not even the architect or oracle would be aware of. But this is nothing new really, it's Plato's cave for the 20th century. It's turtles all the way down. I like it when a film doesn't tie up every loose end and leaves you with something to think about.

The thing I had in mind was the way they dealt with choice in the narrative. I think it was done so it could be looked at either way. In fact, and I don't know this I am assuming, I think the Wachowskis probably believe in free will and see it as very important. I don't believe in it at all, in fact I don't even see room for the possibility of it (depending on how one defines terms, as always). And yet I still enjoy the films because there is enough there that is ambiguous. It is like one big blockbuster philosophical thought experiment. How different are Neo and Agent Smith really? I think they're not so different as one might gather if they're just thinking about the surface level.

If there's anything I find a bit heavy handed in those movies it's that they always come back to the hollywood cliché of love conquers all. But I can forgive that. Wachowskis gonna Wachowski.

[cahernandez]

I went to the Matrix Resurrections US premiere at the Castro Theater in San Francisco (today). Of course I didn’t have tickets to get in but we watched the red carpet event. The whole gang was there, but the biggest thrill for me was watching Keanu Reeves. I don’t really have an attraction to celebrities but he has something…he’s just a humble person and I respect that. I have my tickets for IMAX at 11 am on opening day, looking forward to that!

[mfte]

Light Spoilers

[M1ke]

Another review, with spoilers:

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%...21-deserves%2F

Gotta say, I'm pretty excited about it!

[M1ke]

I kinda liked it.

The beginning felt like it was apologizing for the movie existing, but in kind of a cute way. The middle was a hot mess, but the ending was fun. Spoiler: I laughed so hard when people would wake up and just throw themselves out of the windows to try and hit Neo and Trinity as they were running past, that was one of the most hilariously creative and unexpected things...

It's not a horrible movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not 100% good either.

[howdidislipinto]

i fucking loved it. i think it put a lot of the recent sequels and reboots to shame, and it was so full of ideas. i can't wait to see it again.

very happy that the animatrix/reloaded/revolutions are still very much canon and weren't thrown away/disregarded.

[DVYDRNS]

I liked it. I’ll take this over any dumb ass spider man dc marvel comic book pile of trash movie that’s been shoved down my throat this past decade.

[otnavuskire]

I liked that A LOT. Also really glad I did a rewatch of 2 and 3 over the weekend. Would have missed a bunch of stuff otherwise.

[sonic_discord]

Well, I thought the trailer looked great and I was really excited for it, but I thought it was a massive letdown. Easily the worst Matrix movie. Should have just seen Spider-Man again.

[Wretchedest]

I liked it. I’ll take this over any dumb ass spider man dc marvel comic book pile of trash movie that’s been shoved down my throat this past decade.

Are we living in a world where a fourquel to the matrix is somehow not lumped in with that pile? I'm not on board with that characterization but to me this is belongs in the same group as those other movies and very obviously so

[hellospaceboy]

While it certainly wasn't perfect, I loved it! The lore was great, loved the way it connected to the original trilogy, and it felt very satisfying.

Strangely enough (especially for a Matrix film!) the biggest letdown was the action.

[chuckrh]

Watching now. Pretty good so far. Hopefully they won't mess it up further in the film.

[SM Rollinger]

First half of the film was fucking MENTAL, looking forward to rewatch with the captions on so I can hopefully make sense of the dialogue.

[Jinsai]

I’m in the minority I guess… I thought it was terrible

[sonic_discord]

I’m in the minority I guess… I thought it was terrible

I agree with you. It had a few decent scenes and a couple of interesting ideas (like when Spoiler: people were jumping/diving out of windows, trying to smash into Neo & Trinity like human missiles), but overall, I thought it was extremely disappointing and it made me hope that they don't have any plans to make anymore sequels. Spoiler: It got way too meta for its own good with the original trilogy being a video game that "Tom" created. I guess that could be an interesting idea on its own, but it wasn't executed in a way that respects the first three movies; it reduced them to cheap and unfunny jokes on a regular basis. This happened a lot with the new Morpheus, who mocked the dialog from the original movie ("Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Blah, blah, blah...") and the way they made it look like Neo was about to fly away, only to go "Yeah, that's not happening." <insert lame Full House-style laugh track here> Then there's the "good" machines... Why the fuck didn't they look like the other machines from the machine world? It would make a lot more sense if they just looked like the "evil" sentinels, but maybe just changed the color of the lights from red to blue, that would have been enough to convey that they are aligned with the heroes rather than the "evil" machines. Instead, they inexplicably look like a robot Pokémon bird and beetle. Did they really need to make the robot look like a Pokémon bird to let us know it's not a threat to the humans? Some of the acting was pretty lame (like the moment when Trinity remembered who she was) and the ending was super cringe-inducing and that RATM cover was terrible. I'm fine with them elevating Trinity to Neo's status, but why did they need to nerf Neo so much? I was fine with him being weak at first, but I can't be the only one who was waiting/hoping that he would eventually snap out of it, remember how to use his powers, and kick some serious ass. Anyway, I wish I had just watched it on my friend's HBO account because I don't remember the last time I felt this disappointed in the theater. I hope they let this franchise die now, because it felt to me like a hollow shell of its former self. However, like you said, we seem to be in the minority, so they'll probably pump out more.

[dlb]

Just went in with extremely low expectations. I just recently re-watched the trilogy as I was fairly young when it came out and I forgot alot about the plot and some major scenes. The sequels never were on par with the first one, but I'm happy I rewatched the whole thing to enjoy this one more. Well... I liked it and it certainly was above my expectations. It felt great to see Neo and Trinity back again and I thought some stuff was done in a pretty clever way. Like someone said earlier, I never intended to fully understand everything about The Matrix, so I could follow along just fine.

Spoiler: What I absolutely disliked was how losely connected it felt visually to the first trilogy and not having Hugo Weaving back is a HUGE issue I have with this movie. I'm fine with Morpheus being a re-imagining, but not having an actual Agent Smith in this seriously puts me off. And don't get me startet with the Merovinigan... And what about the soundtrack? I get it... it's not the late 90s anymore, but no one who hasn't seen the original movie should go and see this one, so why not put some newer tracks from Massive Attack, Rob Zombie or even artists like Carpenter Brut or Perturbator onto the list? And yes, that RATM cover was absolutely terrible as well as the last scene...

I also would have loved to dive deeper into the machine world. I absolutey loved the two parts from Animatrix where they put some light onto how the machines rose to power. Missed opportunity... instead we got those AI beings and Pokemons.

So, I'm in the middle with this one... I enjoyed it alot for what it was and had a good time at the cinema. But does anyone need this movie? Definitely not and I sure hope they don't pump out a second trilogy. But overall it felt cool to dive back into the lore and this particular universe that changed pop culture 20 years ago.

[allegate]

there's always a minority to the majority and it's not a bad thing. I love reading contrary* opinions to things that I enjoy because sometimes they pull details that I missed because I'm too caught up in "oh I love this thing". For example: The Screen Rant Pitch Meeting series of videos. He is taking the piss mostly but also has incisive commentary on the decisions that resulted in what is on the screen.

The flip side of that is that sometimes they pull a detail that was incorrect and just makes you want to ask the person "did you run this by someone else who watched the movie to see if they remember it this way?" Those I'm less inclined to take seriously.

*contrary opinions on the Internet being what they are, it's tough to see past the irony of someone hating/liking something for irony's sake. Which, since I just did a Google search for what that means, brought me to a post on a forum that I haven't visited in almost a decade. yikes.

[DVYDRNS]

Watched it again last night with family. Liked it even more. Of course I had to explain every little thing to all of them because they couldn’t wrap their heads around when they were in the “video game” or not. Lol

[thelastdisciple]

I’m in the minority I guess… I thought it was terrible

I wasn't thrilled with it.

@sonic_discord covered some of my issues, the fact that they were making the first film feel like such a joke among other things. The splicing in of footage from the other movies was ridiculous, as if we couldn't have recognized those familiar beats all on our own? The action choreography was shameful and absolutely sloppy and the music/score was very underwhelming. I still felt pretty much the same way as i did with the trailers, the visual language of the simulation world felt so wrong. Was this Limitless 2?

Fuck this movie.

[richardp]

It wasn't perfect and I felt like the middle section drug a lot, but overall I had more fun watching Resurrections than I did either of the original sequels. It still didn't have the same vibe as the first one necesarrily but it still felt more like the first one that either 2 or 3.

[Jinsai]

Yeah... I'm really wondering why this movie isn't being criticized for shoddy underwhelming action sequences... when that was REALLY the biggest thing about the original movie. This felt like a Cinemax "boom boom" action movie with a bunch of annoying "breaking the 4th wall" stuff

[Wretchedest]

It just seems to me like Lana Wachowski didnt want to make an action movie but "if I don't make it someone else will" as they say in the movie, and we get a "Last Jedi" esque unpacking of the legacy of a work of art and the expectations placed on an artist by audiences and employers etc.

It's a lot like the last Jedi, also in that it's pointed at an audience that really probably doesn't want that kind of unpack. The Matrix has rich philosophical themes but have somehow been appropriated by the left AND the right. It seems as though people either love or hate this movie. Which strikes me as a sign that it at least did something different

[Jinsai]

It did something different.... in a pseudo intellectual way that was unsatisfying on every front. It failed at exciting action sequences, it sounded pedestrian and stupid af when it tried to get deep, and then it seemed to just give up after failing at both of those fronts. All we're left with is this bullshit movie that just kinda misses the point intentionally.

[M1ke]

Yeah, I mean really though, once you establish that Neo can Spoiler: throw bullet-stopping and car exploding forcefields from his hands the whole point to any action sequence becomes questionable, at best, and it's really hard to make anything that feels like the characters are in sort of danger.

But also, I felt like the part at the end where Spoiler: they were taking about painting the sky rainbows was a bit of a threat from Lana to the studio. Like, "if you force me to make another matrix movie, it's going be fucking rainbows and unicorns".....and that feels really fun to me.