Most everyone I know loved it, as did I. Surprisingly I have found out in the movie threads that many dopers didn’t. I am curious as to why is that. The main idea The matrix posits–the questioning of reality–is a well-developed, thought- provoking proposition. The special effects are not only spectacular but also innovative. The flow of the movie is great, it never lets go of your attention. And I could go on, and on…:
That is why I can not possibly fathom why someone would dismiss this great piece of cinematic artistry and conceptualize it as some third rate celluloid crap. So, Matrix-haters, why didn’t you liked it?
PD. After watching the trailers I thought it would suck big time. Only at the instance of my friends I went to watch and the rest, as they say, is history.
I’m not a fan of Sci-Fi, and I don’t like violence in movies (or real life, for that matter) I prefer movies that provide brainless entertainment or good suspense with a twist at the end. I have to think at work all day, so I want to decompress if I go out.
Plus, I can’t stand Keanu…
I am posting the OP again, sig included, hopefully.:rolleyes:
Most everyone I know loved it, as did I. Surprisingly I have found out in the movie threads that many dopers didn’t. I am curious as to why is that. The main idea The Matrix posits–the questioning of reality–is a well-developed, thought- provoking proposition. The special effects are not only spectacular but also innovative. The flow of the movie is great, it never lets go of your attention. And I could go on, and on…
That is why I can not possibly fathom why someone would dismiss this great piece of cinematic artistry and conceptualize it as some third rate celluloid crap. So, Matrix-haters, why didn’t you like it?
PD. After watching the trailers I thought it would suck big time. Only at the instance of my friends I went to watch it and the rest, as they say, is history.
I’ve never seen the movie because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like it. First, I hate Keanu Reeves. Second, from what I’ve heard the explanation for how the big evil computer (or whatever it is) gets its power is not only impossible, but so obviously impossible that it’s an insult to the viewer’s intelligence.
The final fight scene was very disappointing, although I enjoyed the rest of the movie despite the typically movie-killing presence of Keanu Reeves.
So Neo is getting the crap beaten out of him until Trinity picks him up and tells him that she loves him. WHAAT?!!?! This movie has taken us on a deep, probing ride through the nature of reality, but for the ending, it has to resort to some “power of love” garbage that I would expect from some hack sitcom writer? PLEASE!
The only part of the movie that caused me a problem is the ending. I mean, how corny is it that she kisses his dead body, tells the corpse that she loves him, sheds a few tears, and voila! he comes back to life?
The only plausible scientific explanation is that they are still in the matrix :eek: – and unless that’s the premise for a sequel it’s a pretty crappy solution.
Death is just a state of mind,
The problem is that it takes up all of your time.
I didn’t hate it, but I’m sure as hell not worshipping it. It’s solidly a two-star movie, and it earns both of those stars entirely by virtue of its special effects.
You have to sit through about an hour and a half of the writer’s half-assed zen theorizing about “what is reality” before arriving at a half-hour of eye candy. It’s just barely worth it.
Reeves’s character, Neo, who is obviously as dumb as a sack of hammers, skates by in the movie by virtue of the “informed attribute”. Informed attributes are those which the other characters in the movie profess that a character has, when in fact the audience can plainly see he possesses no such attribute. Example: take any cheap 80s dance movie, where all characters repeatedly tell the main character, “Wow, you’re the best dancer I’ve ever seen!” even though the audience sees him/her lurching about like Frankenstein’s monster with a broken hip.
So it is with Neo. We the audience are told again and again, “He has the power, he’s the one, he’s the best,” but we see no evidence of any intelligence or skill in him whatsoever. He succeeds only due to the ineptitude of his opponents and because it’s in the script. Sorry, don’t buy it.
Laws of physics and reality itself can be altered with focused imagination and creative coding, and the fate of the world is still decided by guns and kung-fu fighting? Give me a break.
The “revived with a kiss” deus ex machina at the end is so poor, so corny, so hackneyed, so feeble, so wrong that the entire movie fails. Could the screenwriter come up with nothing better than “love conquers all”? My guess is, in the (sadly) forthcoming sequels, we’ll see the Master Computer moaning like Ro-Man: “To live like the hu-man, to love like the hu-man…” That kind of crap writing had its place, and its place was 1950.
Anyway. Don’t hate it, even own it on DVD for the extras and effects, but it ain’t a masterpiece by any measuring stick.
The acting was third rate and the script was fourth rate. And that’s just the first twenty minutes. I couldn’t tell you how it was after that because I turned it off in disgust. Boring tripe.
Two changes could have made the Matrix a good movie:
Trinity shuld have been pissed off. Lok at it from here point of view: you spend your whole life waiting to be the savior of mankind. Then, when you finally go see the chick that is going to confirm your destiny, she says “No dear, sorry, you’re not good enough. Tell you what, though–you get to fall in love with him!” Any idiot can see that she is twice the man Keanu is. Had she grudgingly fallen in love wiht him, resenting him for it every step of the way, taht would have been interesting. Instead, she spends the movie just looking for chances to fall in love with him, perhaps because she is trying to forcew the prophecy.
2)The motivations of the machines. The “people as Duracells” thing is so bad–it sounded like the development team used the first suggestion anybody came up with right before lunch and then moved on to costumes. A much better reason for hte exisitance of the matrix would have been creepy machine ethics–the machines had decidfed that it was unethical to kill off humans but impossible to live with them, so they trapped them in the matrix. Creepy, alien ethical systems are interesting–“scientific” explainations that anyone who took physical science in HS can see through are not.
Max Torque is dead on, I think, about the constant “you’re so cool” rhetoric being a rather pitiful attempt to cover up for hte fact that every other charecter in the movie was more interesting and more complex than Neo.
Didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. I thought that the effects were pretty cool, but certainly didn’t think that the premise of the movie was exactly mind blowing. Questioning reality isn’t a new concept.
I asked that myself upon first watching the movie. I came up with an explanation that seemed satisfactory. As I am too lazy to write it again I will just copy-paste it from a reply I posted on another thread. The paragraph in boldface cuts to the heart of the issue; the preceding arguments provide support to that speculation.
How do Neo and the others initiated their awakening from the dreamworld of the Matrix? From the moment of their “conception” on the fields to the time when they were first plugged into the Matrix, they experienced firsthand, however briefly that experience was, the carcasses of the real world. It is therefore reasonable to assume that during that brief moment they acquired the necessary perception of the underlying reality that could eventually, and under the right set of conditions, trigger a flashback (“a splinter in the mind”) capable of planting the seeds of doubt in their minds and providing the necessary doses of awareness needed to comprehend the crudeness of the occulted reality.
That would explain how Neo, a superior being with a higher perception of his surroundings, began to unfold the dark secret of the matrix, thus laying the groundwork for his future encounter with Morpheus and the materialization of his destiny. It is arguable, however, that, hadn’t Morpheus intervened, Neo would had eventually found his path and uncovered the reality by himself. After all, he is The One, the digital savior of the virtual world.
One scenario under which that might had happened arises if we consider déjà vu in the traditional meaning of the word and not in the context of the matrix. It is then reasonable that, since Neo is the reincarnation of The One, somehow the voice of Trinity served as a catalyst for a semiconscious déjà vu during his brief death (perhaps it matched a similar event during his previous incarnation), a déjà vu that brought back the memories of his previous existence, his previous manifestation as The One, thus providing him the realization of his real persona and the restoration of his control of the matrix.
Taking this movie kinda seriously, aren’t you? If that’s what happened, why not hint at it or something at some point during the film? I still the film was flawed, and Neo’s coming back to life thing is one of the main reasons. Yes, it had great SFX, but I didn’t think it was wonderful as a film. The writing was unimpressive, the acting was mediocre, and I couldn’t care less if the main characters lived or died. I also agree with Max Torque’s statement, “Laws of physics and reality itself can be altered with focused imagination and creative coding, and the fate of the world is still decided by guns and kung-fu fighting?”
I didn’t think it was anything more than a two and a half star film and I will not be eagerly awaiting any sequels.
Well… I believe that this was one of the MANY parallels to The One (Jesus, for many). Remember that whole “…on the third day, rose again” thing? I’m almost certain that’s what it’s referencing. Or at least that’s what they want me to think.
I enjoyed the movie for the most part, as I now own the DVD. Unfortunately, I find myself getting bored at certain parts about 1/3 of the way into the movie and find myself forced to skip to the lobby shootout scene. The soundtrack was cool, not to mention fitting. While it’s no Saving Private Ryan, it was entertaining and worth the cost of admission. If it meets the latter criterion, I don’t mind.
It was really great!
The only bad part was that the growing-human farm scene was too short. I like that part of the fantasy more than dodging bullets or fighting in slow motion.
I didn’t hate it (I have it on DVD) but it is not worth anywhere near the hype.
The effects are not very good.
I know that goes against almost everybody else’s opinion, but seriously, they are flashy video tricks, nothing unique or special, not very effective in really transporting you into a fantasy environment - instead it just said “Look at me! Am I not zippy and zappy? Do I not radiate digital flashy clever trickery?”
Which is the exact opposite of what effects should be. They are meant to serve the story, not distract you.
On top of that - who in their right mind would prefer to live in the real world rather than within the Matrix? I mean, come on!
Since The Matrix is a computer simulation it is not subject to the rules of physics. Instead it obeys the rules established by its programmers, AI.
Even though our assessments of the movie’s quality are quite different, I must admit that you are right on the money regarding the “informed attribute” issue. That is a very interesting point by the way.
Crunchy
Yeah, I loved the damn movie. Is it that obvious?
You are right regarding the character identification issue though. They don’t encompass the necessary qualities to make the audience care much about them. I mean, I liked them and hoped they would succeed but I never experienced the kind of appeal towards them that was induced by Han Solo or Luke Skywalker, to give a common example.
GuanoLad
You are right. The solution (the real world) is worst than the problem (The Matrix). That annihilates any validity that the cause the heroes are fighting for might have. In any case, I refrain myself from further criticizing this point since this is only the first delivery of the trilogy and thus I expect them to come to grips with that contradiction and provide a viable escape clause that appropriately justifies the need to secede from the virtual universe of the Matrix.
“But what is reality?” Oh, please. This is the kind of thing I occupied myself with during long drives when I was about ten. “Thought-provoking” my ass.
Dull middle section; loads of exposition without a lot of forward motion. Basically, when Hugo Weaving isn’t anywhere in the vicinity, things come to a halt.
Backlash. I am SO GODDAM SICK of hearing about this movie’s “amazing” and “innovative” fight and shootout scenes. It’s no secret that the Wachowskis were borrowing from Hong Kong, (watch the “making-of”) where such things are routine, even considered old-fashioned these days; but by Hong Kong standards, the hand-to-hand action is average at BEST. The fights looked good on the big screen, but on TV they look pretty poor. The gunplay is still cool, but really nothing special. Anybody can shoot a whole scene in slo-mo.
The score. I didn’t realize how overbearing it was until I heard the whole movie play in the next room.
Keanu. He didn’t bug me too much, but he sure didn’t much either.
The kiss. Just HAD to work in a little romance, huh?
FUCK bullet-time. Every time I see some stupid commercial or music video pointlessly use this not-that-cool effect, I scream.
Basically, I liked the movie on the big screen, but now that I foolishly bought the DVD, I find I like Bound a lot better.
It was OK, but nowhere near the hype. I’m still puzzled by how much attention it’s received.
The “nature of reality” stuff that was supposed to have been so mind-bending was ridiculous. It was like Day 1 of Freshman Philosophy 101.
What Max said about using guns. That made me roll my eyes the first time I saw it. If I was arming myself with any imaginable weaponry, I’d ask for superintelligent ultraloyal robots armed with miniature fusion bombs. THAT would have done the trick. But no. “We’ll need guns. Lots of them.” Keanu must have ad-libbed that. No one else could be that dumb.
I thought the special effects were good and interesting, but hardly earth-shattering. Yet now every other movie has what has come to be known as “Matrix-type effects.” Gah.
