No, that's not the name of the upcoming fourth Matrix film. I watched Matrix 1 a few days ago, and then needing further mental break/relaxation Friday night and Saturday evening, I watched Matrix 2 and 3 on DVD. I'd not seen all of The Matrix in years; just bits and pieces on cable, and the same went double for Matrix 2. I hadn't seen any of Matrix 3 since seeing it in theaters opening day, despite having the DVD lying around here for like 2 years. Malaya and me picked it up as the fifth-wheel third disk in one of those "3 used DVDs for $25" sales Blockbuster has, and never got around to watching it. She's out of town now and has still never seen it again, and probably never will, since she disliked it a lot more than I did back in 2004 when it was released.
Going into this viewing session, I had no expectations. I've long held that those are the primary determining factor in movie enjoyment, and in fact I talked about it quite a bit in the intro to my original
Matrix 3 review, ironically enough. Going into Matrix 2 back in 2004, I and most everyone else had enormous expectations, since most of us were (justifiably) huge fans of the first film. Matrix 2 wasn't anywhere near as good a movie, but it did enough interesting things and had enough faux-philosophy that most voters were unimpressed, but kind of undecided. Which put all the pressure on Matrix 3 to salvage the whole trilogy, or sink it. It sunk, earning the least money of the three films and garnering by far the worst reviews. Looking back 2.5 years later though... how was it? Not that bad.
Then again, I didn't think it was that bad when I first saw it either, though that fact came as something of a surprise to me. In my memory I was very disappointed that the plot went nowhere and that the action sequences were all completely irrelevant to the plot. In reality, I gave
Matrix 2 a 6 and
Matrix 3 a 6.5, then spent most of the review and about six subsequent blog posts nitpicking it like a chicken eating corn on the cob.
I'm wandering here, so let me refocus.
Matrix 1: excellent film. I hadn't seen the whole thing in sequence in years, and watching it a few days ago I was impressed. It's a very tightly-plotted, well-formed film. It's fairly lengthy, and entirely chronological and episodic, but it moves along quickly since there aren't any wasted scenes. As is often the case with movies or books, the first one is the best since much of the dramatic load is handled by simply telling the story and introducing the world. The audience learns about the Matrix and the machines and Agents and Zion and the prophecy and all the rest along with Neo. The action scenes are very well integrated too, and they advance the plot. Neo and Morpheus don't spar just for fun, they do it to prove that Neo has actually learned from the programs, and to demonstrate the rules of the virtual reality. The later gun battles and helicopter flying and subway fight are much the same, in that they are cool action sequences that are essential to the plot. They don't go on for too long or do anything totally silly either.
This is not the case in Matrix 2, which has a bunch of technologically better action scenes, most of which are entirely devoid of imagination or plot importance. They're filler, basically. Unnecessary, or if necessary, much longer than they need to be. Neo spars with Seraph to no purpose. Neo fights 100 Agent Smiths for 10 minutes of rubbery CGI to demonstrate nothing at all, since we already knew Agent Smith could clone himself. Neo takes forever to kill six guys in a room with antique weapons when he should have ended them in 30 seconds or just flown down the hallway since he knew dangerous. The freeway chase is good... for about 10 minutes. The last 10 is just more of the same thing. Etc. Action porn aside, I did enjoy Matrix 2 this time, for the most part. The paradoxes and mind-bending philosophy stuff from the Oracle and the Architect was still interesting, and while almost everything that happened in Zion, especially Morpheus' big speech and the rave, was crap, I could see why it was there. It mostly served to advance the plot, at least, and since I just criticized the action for not doing that, I've got to give some credit.
Matrix 3 was not bad either, if I went very small picture. Ignore the massive plot holes (detailed at length in my original review) and general stupidity or futility of every human action in the entire film, and there were a lot of pretty things happening, some of them even kind of original or clever. Most of the movie was like the action in Matrix 2 though: filler. The endless and pointlessly futile battle to defend Zion from invading robots, the endless and pointlessly futile race to get back there with one ship, the endless and pointlessly futile Neo vs. Agent Smith fight scene at the end, etc. A complete plot outline of Matrix 3 would require what, 50, 75 words? Nothing happens. You learn a lot about why nothing is happening, and stuff blows up real good, but so what? The movie ends almost exactly where Matrix 1 ended, and that is, I think, the source of the general discontent with the film.
One could pretty easily argue that Matrix 1 was a great idea, and that the writers had no idea where to go next and signed a bunch of deals for books and comix and games, all of which were set in the world in that state. They also had a 2nd and 3rd movie to cash cow with, so they had to make it seem like stuff was happening, while introducing a ton of new characters and adding character types to the canon so they could be plumbed by the companion works. So we got Matrix 2 and 3 with the plot transcribing a huge and pointless circle, but along the way we added robot cities, rogue programs of all types in the Matrix, Zion's political structure, lots more vague philosophy, battling robot factions, a complicating world history, sentient programs outside the Matrix trying to enter it, merciful squiddies, and more. None of which really mattered, but it certainly gave the guys drawing the comix and writing the novels and creating the MMORPG a lot more ammunition.
I am willing to give the W brothers some credit for not having a happily ever after ending. It was a happier ending than it had any right to be, what with the robots sparring humanity in Zion, promises made to release all the one percenters who won't accept the Matrix program, etc, but it wasn't a defeat of the sentient robots, or an end to the Matrix, or anything world-changing. On the other hand, wouldn't that actually be a far less happy movie? Imagine the robots shutting down the Matrix and waking up all the billions of people plugged into it? What then?
Zion's somehow producing enough food (though no means of food production was ever shown in any of the films) to feed 250,000 people... that seems extremely unlikely, but we'll just play along. What are they going to do with 100 or 1000 or 10,000 times that many? Imagine the entire world's population suddenly sitting up in those tubs of pink goo, with hoses attached to every part of their bodies and no muscle tone, ability to walk, etc? How would the multiethnic hippies in Zion do about that? How many could they rescue or try to feed? Five percent? A Matrix 4 with several hundred million naked, hairless, insane, starving, physically-helpless humans flopping around on endless fields of broken machine parts would actually be a pretty interesting film. In a Nazi war crimes sort of way.
On the whole, the films weren't bad. Matrix 1 kind of spoiled us by being so good and smart and tightly-plotted, and our expectations sabotaged Matrix 2 and 3, but looking back the sequels aren't so bad. They're certainly better than most of the other comic book movies we've seen in recent years. It's just that they had the opportunity to be so much more...
Labels: matrix, movie review, movies
