I just watched the last installement of the Matrix while doing some paperwork and while my attention was not being distracted by the visuals I did catch some of the dialogue.
It is the most assinine and trite load of horseshit I’ve heard… short of most corporate speak, I mean.
Is this movie anything more than the writer’s self indulgent attempt at jeuvenile phylosophy and social evolutionary theories? I mean highschool level stuff: “Emotions are just a weak perception”, “Reality is a construct”, “Humans are imperfect”, “Humanity is a disease”… Blah…blah…blah… fucking BLAH!
The movie is the cinematic equivalent of a dumb blonde. It’s lucky for her she’s got great visuals because there’s nothing between the ears.
It’s not like you’re the first to discover this. The Matrix is just plain stupid (and, I’ll also add, pretty damn boring for most of its length), with some flashy special effects that fooled some people.
Yet, oddly, when the second and completely idiotic movie came out, the hordes here had orgasms over its wonderfulness. I wonder how they feel in hindsight.
For the record, I gave it an F. In hindsight, I was too kind.
The worst part is that the basic premise is pretty damn cool. If they’d explained the machines’ use for humans as something besides batteries (which doesn’t work), like, say, the processors in a massively parallel supercomputer, I’d’ve been on-board plot-wise. Unfortunately, the movie itself doesn’t live up to the potential of the plot, having opted for some sort of lame, backwards, watered-down allegory of the cave. The news isn’t all bad, though; despite the general craptacularity of the live-action Matrix movies, The Animatrix, a collection of eight animated shorts set alongside the live-action movies but focused on new characters, is quite good.
We know. So what? It’s a cool-looking movie that makes good use of its concept, as unoriginal as that concept is. It’s fun. It’s when people start trying to talk about how deep it is and all the levels of the metaphor that it becomes apparent that the movie is a shallow, derivative piece of crap that could have been slammed together in three days by a couple of geeks who spent a week in a Comparative Religions class and like to get stoned while talking about bits of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy they obviously didn’t understand. The people who made the movie seem to think it was a great allegory, and they’re wrong, but if you don’t take it seriously, ignore those people, and ignore the awful sequels, it’s fun and you can laugh at the wooden acting.
In other words, change “sequels” to “prequels” and it’s an awful lot like Star Wars.
QuickSilver did say it was the last installment which was pretty rubbish. If you take the first one on it’s own without the explanations from the other two it becomes an ok film and kick ass action movie.
The second two movies make the first (on its own, a bubblegum construct of drunk teenage navelgazing masquerading as something serious – pretty, though) into something worth watching. There’s been a millon threads on it here already.
I like to compare the Matrix films to Marlon Brando. The first film is like young Brando, new, exciting, unlike anything you’ve seen before. The last two films are like old Brando, bloated and incomprehensible, causing you to think “what the hell went wrong?”
The first movie was better because the fight scenes meant something:
Neo vs. Morpheus : Neo’s training.
Morpheus vs. Smith: Buying time for the others to escape.
Neo vs. Smith: Neo becomes “The One.”
In contrast, the fights in the later movies are completely pointless and though they might look cool in a trailer, each brings the movie to a screeching halt:
Neo vs. Three Agents: A draw, until Neo flies away.
Neo vs. Serpah: A draw, until Seraph says “Okay, you’re the One.”
Neo vs. Multi-Smiths: A draw, until Neo flies away.
Neo vs. Merovingian’s Goons: Ends when Neo finally stops fooling around and just toasts them.
Neo vs. Smith, final battle: Ends when… I’m not sure exactly why this one ended.
The freeway chase (including Morpheus vs. Johnson) was pretty cool, though, helped along by the intriguing idea that the ghost twins (as well as the vampires) represent glitches left over from earlier Matrix designs.
The second of the three movies destroyed anything potentially interesting in the backstory of the slick action movie of the first. It was awful and intellectually bankrupt on every level.
Like I said, I listened more than watched the film and I was simply observing how little attention was paid to the script and dialogue and how easy that is to miss (forgive?) because of the stunning visuals.
Not knocking anyone liking the film series. Just saying… dialogue sucks. YMMV.