The Matrix Trilogy.
Watched all three films (as well as some of the shorts from Animatrix) for the first time in years. With the advancements in special effects over the past 15 years I dont think I'll ever be as wowed by a blockbuster as I was when I first saw The Matrix back in 1999. We've became saturated with countless films at the box office with brilliant special effects since the 90's and its getting harder and harder to come up with something audiences haven't seen. The Matrix didn't have this problem and coupled with a mind bending plot and some of the coolest action scenes ever put on film its no surprise it was such a huge hit. I suppose the closest we've came to a big budget "intelligent" action blockbuster that grabbed audiences attention like this was Inception (which is actually quite a similar premise when you think about it). That last half hour of The Matrix though is still one of the best bits of action cinema ive ever seen. So many brilliant moments and iconic scenes that still get me excited to this day. It was just one mind blowing set piece after another with barely a let up.
And then we
come.to the two sequels 4 years later. In the time since every other action film was copying the matrix and the likes of Charlies Angels had Cameron Diaz flying around in bullet time. Countless cheap knock offs had made diminished our enjoyment of this kind of film. Even though I still enjoy both Reloaded and Revolutions theyre terrible in comparison with the first film. Especially Revolutions which abandons alot of the main characters for huge chunks of the film to focus on a few minor characters from Reloaded. On top of that aside from Neos final confrontation with Smith, theres one very short action scene inside The Matrix. For a film with The Matrix in the title that was ridiculous. People going to see a Matrix want to actually see some cool shit happen, you know, in the matrix itself. Not an hour of minor characters shooting at robotic squids.
Im not saying they shouldn't have showed the fight for Zion but it didnt need to take up half of the film only to give us a fight with Smith right at the end and people suddenly remembered it was a Matrix film again. Anyway looking back at these two films years after the disappointment the first time I saw them, I still enjoyed them more than I did previously. Theyre quite clearly just a sequence of excuses to give us some cool stuff to happen in the matrix and I will say boy did we get them. Reloaded in particular has some brilliant stuff in there. The fight in the château on the stairs and the highway scene are brilliant. As good as anything we got in the first film. Its just a shame the story was thread bare and the whole thing felt like a videogame. Oh we need to see the oracle. Why? We just do ok. Right now we need a keymaker? Why? We just do ok. If we didnt we would need an excuse for Trinity to drive the wrong way down a motorway on a bike.
Watching them.both together Revolutions doesnt seem nearly as bad I remembered it. Its clearly one film anyway like Kill Bill just split into two. I genuinely think they would have been alot better if they were edited down into one long 3 hour movie rather than the 4 hours and 20 minutes split into two that we actually got. Theres alot of unnecessary filler in Reloaded and the first half hour of Revolutions isnt even necessary at all and the actual battle for Zion could be drastically cut without losing any of its impact.
Overall alot of fun watching all three together, but its a shame the quality decreases with each film.
