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AlexRobo

Sun Oct 02, 2016 4:54 pm


The Matrix (1999)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKQi3bBA1y8

I've been watching this lately and brings back some really nice memories of when I first watched it on the big screen all those years ago.  At the time, the concept was very interesting and novel, even though it borrowed considerably from Total Recall, The Terminator and Strange Days, but this was the first mainstream movie to introduce bullet-time effects and "wire-fu".  Keanu is never gonna win any awards for his acting, but he's very likeable as Neo, Joe Pantoliano does well as the traitor, Laurence Fishburne is the sage mentor we've seen many times in movies like Star Wars and Highlander and Carrie Anne Moss is a very cool heroine/love interest.  This also had a John Woo feel because of the long black coats and the two-handed gunplay.  Funnily enough, I never watched the sequels because my cousins said they were trash.


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Stan The Man

Sun Oct 02, 2016 6:08 pm



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The sequels are worth a watch, but admittedly not much more than that. At least as far as I'm concerned, anyway.

The Matrix kicks ass for sure though. Yeah it's a good bit derivative, but so is most everything, and they did make a good unique slant on those elements with some nice aspects of its own. The effects, in additon to being in many ways groundbreaking and just plain neat, were quite Cameron-esque in how they blended with the story and narrative. Production design I really enjoyed - The whole look and tone of the entire film is just amazing.  I also very much like the cast and characters, especially Pantoliano, Fishburne and Hugo Weaving as Smith. 

It's one of my highest-level faves for sure - One of the not too many I could just sit and watch almost any old time.


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artuditu

Wed Jul 05, 2017 4:44 pm



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The Matrix kicks ass for sure though. Yeah it's a good bit derivative, but so is most everything, and they did make a good unique slant on those elements with some nice aspects of its own. 

Despite being very derivative of existing material the way they blended everything and brought unity to it was like a lightning in a bottle. It was science fiction, philosophical, political, and found a way to mix so many different genres of action, with guns and martial arts, plus the groundbreaking bullet-time element. Almost 20 years after, the film still holds up really well.

With the sequels they got lost in a bigger scale, bigger budget, bigger story, bigger universe, bigger powers, bigger philosophical issues,... They were brave trying to expand instead of just replicating, but they were overconfident and misjudged what made the cocktail so special in the first movie.


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Stan The Man

Wed Jul 05, 2017 7:41 pm



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Well said all-around. Sequels weren't bad, just shooting way too high. Of course, the first film had all those things blended together so damn well - I suppose its near impossible to carry on when you get it so damn right the first time out. The RoboCop syndrome.

