{"id":13700,"date":"2008-10-19T19:00:43","date_gmt":"2008-10-20T02:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/10\/19\/movie-review-the-matrix-trilogy.html"},"modified":"2014-11-06T08:24:34","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T15:24:34","slug":"movie_review_the_matrix_t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/10\/19\/movie_review_the_matrix_t.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: The Matrix Trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taken as a whole, and watched on a single flight back from India<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

The Matrix<\/a>, The Matrix Releaded<\/a>, The Matrix Revolutions<\/a><\/em> (1999, 2003, 2003)<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Overall<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Story<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Production<\/td>\n <\/td>\n Acting<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’ve watched the first film multiple times, but never caught (due to bad press) the second two. Matrix I <\/em>was great and self-contained. Matrix II-III <\/em>(really a single movie) suffers most from an indecision of vision. Is this movie:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • A big-concept SF action-adventure?<\/li>\n
  • A showing-place for new and spiffy CG fx?<\/li>\n
  • An examination of the last human refuge, Sion, how an endless war has shaped it, and the final battle between humanity and its mechanized creations?<\/li>\n
  • A scientific high-fantasy full of strange conceptual creatures and Neo’s Alice<\/em>-like encounters with same?<\/li>\n
  • Neo’s continued voyage of self-discovery for the meaning of life?<\/li>\n
  • The deadly ongoing man-vs-machine duel between Smith and Neo?<\/li>\n
  • A religous-philosophical tract on the nature of reality, and the dependence of its parts? Or about what is life and what’s the difference between humans and machines?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    There’s multiple movies in there; by trying to make them all into one (well, two), the Wachowski Bros. end up with something that’s too diffuse to make much sense, and dilute most of the characters they bring in to fill in the multitude of roles. We get bits of Terminator<\/em> movies, Alien <\/em>movies, Lord of the Rings<\/em>, Blade Runner, Tron<\/em>, and Star Wars,<\/em> and end up with something that doesn’t match any of them (even Tron<\/em>).<\/p>\n

    Actingwise, the mysteriously wooden actors of the first installment are replaced by clearly wooden actors in the second two (and, yet, actors that manage to change the direction of their woodenness at various and random intervals). The production values, at least, are up to par through the whole thing — but, honestly, they super-duper-matrixy kung-fu melees of the first movie aren’t improved upon later on, only repeated to increasing tedium.<\/p>\n

    The second two-thirds of the Matrix Trilogy <\/em>aren’t awful. They just aren’t very good, esp. compared to the promise and freshness of the first. Watch just The Matrix, and save yourself some time.<\/p>\n

    Bottom line: A great way to kill about half of a flight from India to the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Taken as a whole, and watched on a single flight back from India.   The Matrix, The Matrix Releaded, The Matrix Revolutions (1999, 2003, 2003)  Overall Story Production Acting  …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[382,41,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lord-of-the-rings","category-media-movies","category-star-wars-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":40030,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/12\/movie-review-the-matrix-1999.html","url_meta":{"origin":13700,"position":0},"title":"Movie Review: "The Matrix" (1999)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Dec-13 9:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night of this month's father-daughter movie week, so I thought I'd roll back to a film from juuuuuust before she was born. 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