Thoughts on a Trilogy (Matrix)
Over the Chinese New Year period, I watched all three movies of the Matrix trilogy on DVD, over a span of 2 days. When seen back to back, the decline in quality and coherence was even more apparent than when I watched Reloaded and Revolutions in isolation. On the other hand, the last 2 instalments became somehow more bearable when the plot is followed through till the end. I still think these were excruciatingly overblown and preposterous, but perhaps this is magnified when they are seen in isolation.
The first movie, a few years on, is still landmark movie making. The writing was intelligent and even the psychobabble catch-phrases (Free your mind. Be the spoon.) were consciously clever enough to rise above the corniness. Trinity looked great, Morpheus was super-ultra cool and Keanu Reeves' impassive acting style (or if you like, his limited range) was perfect for the role of a character adjusting with bewilderment and wonder to his destined greatness. The plot was ingenious; it ended at the just the right place and left so much room for development.
Matrix Reloaded was an overly long and could not make up its mind whether it was trying to be an action movie, a cryptic noir film or a deep meditation on the meaning of being. Uneven pacing, however, was the least of its problems. The most unforgivable aspect of Reloaded was the screenplay, which was full of dialogue so insufferably self-important, I wonder how the actors kept straight faces. The writing was too consciously trying to be clever, as if the writers were nudging us at the end of each line and asking, "was that not clever?" Well, I found it mostly mumbo-jumbo. Words that appear meaningless are not necessarily cryptic. Sometimes, they ARE meaningless. I would like to think that the screenplay was written with some meaning in mind, even if it's not apparent. Otherwise, it's just plain laziness. Defenders of the film have argued that it is a strength when everything is not black and white, when questions are asked and not answered and each viewer can apply his/her own interpretation to it. The problem is that the entire mess is so meaningless, there really is nothing to interpret. The only question asked, and which is readily answered, is "Isn't this a load of crap?"
There is a lot that I did not like about Reloaded. The "rave" scene at Zion has been much maligned, and justifiably so. That was just completely unecessary and added nothing to the movie. Still, this was just a few minutes in a very long movie, and one can always fast forward to the next scene on the DVD. One cannot fast forward the encounter with the Architect, and the exposition in that scene, which completely betrays the mythology established in the first film. Mathematical anomaly, my foot! And that ridiculous "sacrificial" scene where Neo chooses to save Trinity instead of Zion. Suddenly, the movie turned into The Greatest Love of All (black leather edition).
Then we had the third and final instalment. A far grander name this time, Matrix Revolutions. I was so disgusted with the second movie, I actually thought the third was a slight improvement. Not that this is praise by any means. Having destroyed the magic of the original so thoroughly, they could not really do much worse, although they did try with the scenes in the "in-between" train station. This movie relied a little more on old-fashioned action-movie cliches (Niobe piloting the ship through the treacherous mechanical line, Link's girlfriend helping the underaged volunteer to open Gate 3 in Zion, the battle scenes, the sentinels chasing the ship) and a little less on the stilted dialogue of the 2nd movie. That was good, or at least better than the abysmal standards of Reloaded.
What was not so good was the resolution. Neo sacrificing himself to save Zion was perhaps not unexpected, but this was not anti-climatic because it was expected. It was ant-climatic because that eventuality was telegraphed the moment Trinity died. At that stage, we still had 20 minutes of Smith and Neo engaging in cheesier than comic-book fighting. All that slow-motion stuff became quite boring. Everything also seemed to be larger than life, as if flying higher, bigger holes in the ground and brighter flashes in the sky are somehow indicative of a great galatic battle. World War 2 had nothing on these 2 as they heaved and hoed their way through an unattractively dark version of the Matrix world.
Which brings me to the production values. They spent a lot of money on the 2 sequels, and it tells, but could they not have designed something more appealing? The metalic tentacled mahines were ugly and not in the good way of conveying evil (like the Orcs and Urukhais in LOTR) but in the bad way of just being unpleasant to look at. Zion was supposed to be impressive, I think, with all the panning camera shots trying to established the vastness and depth of the construction. However, the colours were so dull, and everything looked bathed in dust and coated by tarnished metal. The scene in the first movie, when the camera panned to reveal the field of "batteries" was so much more effective, genuinely chilling and spine-tingling in a way that the sequels never came close to replicating.
Even sadder was the loss of spark in all the lead actors. Keanu Reeves seemed still stuck in apprentice mode and was not totally convincing as someone confident in his own abilities as The One. Lawrence Fshburne was not even half as cool as he was in the first movie, which I think was due to the poor writing for Morpheus' role in the sequels. We had gotten used to seeing Morpheus as the patriach figure, and here he was being reduced to the rebel captain (who lost his girl to the anally retentive Commander, unthinkable of the first movie's Morpheus!) regarded with suspicion by his peers and superiors. And Carrie Anne Moss fares the worst of all. She had lost so much weight, she looked haggard. And Trinity's role in the third movie was relegated to strong, long-suffering love interest, albeit a gun-wielding, kung-fu kicking one. It was as if the movie could not sustain more than one bad-ass female character and Niobe had filled that vacancy.
All in, I wish the sequels had not been made. Without the sequels, people will continue to exercise their imaginations and speculate about its mythology and what The One was meant to do. Now, that is truly asking questions and letting the audience find their own answers. Without the sequels, The Matrix could be remembered untainted as a classic. This will still be its legacy, I hope.
The first movie, a few years on, is still landmark movie making. The writing was intelligent and even the psychobabble catch-phrases (Free your mind. Be the spoon.) were consciously clever enough to rise above the corniness. Trinity looked great, Morpheus was super-ultra cool and Keanu Reeves' impassive acting style (or if you like, his limited range) was perfect for the role of a character adjusting with bewilderment and wonder to his destined greatness. The plot was ingenious; it ended at the just the right place and left so much room for development.
Matrix Reloaded was an overly long and could not make up its mind whether it was trying to be an action movie, a cryptic noir film or a deep meditation on the meaning of being. Uneven pacing, however, was the least of its problems. The most unforgivable aspect of Reloaded was the screenplay, which was full of dialogue so insufferably self-important, I wonder how the actors kept straight faces. The writing was too consciously trying to be clever, as if the writers were nudging us at the end of each line and asking, "was that not clever?" Well, I found it mostly mumbo-jumbo. Words that appear meaningless are not necessarily cryptic. Sometimes, they ARE meaningless. I would like to think that the screenplay was written with some meaning in mind, even if it's not apparent. Otherwise, it's just plain laziness. Defenders of the film have argued that it is a strength when everything is not black and white, when questions are asked and not answered and each viewer can apply his/her own interpretation to it. The problem is that the entire mess is so meaningless, there really is nothing to interpret. The only question asked, and which is readily answered, is "Isn't this a load of crap?"
There is a lot that I did not like about Reloaded. The "rave" scene at Zion has been much maligned, and justifiably so. That was just completely unecessary and added nothing to the movie. Still, this was just a few minutes in a very long movie, and one can always fast forward to the next scene on the DVD. One cannot fast forward the encounter with the Architect, and the exposition in that scene, which completely betrays the mythology established in the first film. Mathematical anomaly, my foot! And that ridiculous "sacrificial" scene where Neo chooses to save Trinity instead of Zion. Suddenly, the movie turned into The Greatest Love of All (black leather edition).
Then we had the third and final instalment. A far grander name this time, Matrix Revolutions. I was so disgusted with the second movie, I actually thought the third was a slight improvement. Not that this is praise by any means. Having destroyed the magic of the original so thoroughly, they could not really do much worse, although they did try with the scenes in the "in-between" train station. This movie relied a little more on old-fashioned action-movie cliches (Niobe piloting the ship through the treacherous mechanical line, Link's girlfriend helping the underaged volunteer to open Gate 3 in Zion, the battle scenes, the sentinels chasing the ship) and a little less on the stilted dialogue of the 2nd movie. That was good, or at least better than the abysmal standards of Reloaded.
What was not so good was the resolution. Neo sacrificing himself to save Zion was perhaps not unexpected, but this was not anti-climatic because it was expected. It was ant-climatic because that eventuality was telegraphed the moment Trinity died. At that stage, we still had 20 minutes of Smith and Neo engaging in cheesier than comic-book fighting. All that slow-motion stuff became quite boring. Everything also seemed to be larger than life, as if flying higher, bigger holes in the ground and brighter flashes in the sky are somehow indicative of a great galatic battle. World War 2 had nothing on these 2 as they heaved and hoed their way through an unattractively dark version of the Matrix world.
Which brings me to the production values. They spent a lot of money on the 2 sequels, and it tells, but could they not have designed something more appealing? The metalic tentacled mahines were ugly and not in the good way of conveying evil (like the Orcs and Urukhais in LOTR) but in the bad way of just being unpleasant to look at. Zion was supposed to be impressive, I think, with all the panning camera shots trying to established the vastness and depth of the construction. However, the colours were so dull, and everything looked bathed in dust and coated by tarnished metal. The scene in the first movie, when the camera panned to reveal the field of "batteries" was so much more effective, genuinely chilling and spine-tingling in a way that the sequels never came close to replicating.
Even sadder was the loss of spark in all the lead actors. Keanu Reeves seemed still stuck in apprentice mode and was not totally convincing as someone confident in his own abilities as The One. Lawrence Fshburne was not even half as cool as he was in the first movie, which I think was due to the poor writing for Morpheus' role in the sequels. We had gotten used to seeing Morpheus as the patriach figure, and here he was being reduced to the rebel captain (who lost his girl to the anally retentive Commander, unthinkable of the first movie's Morpheus!) regarded with suspicion by his peers and superiors. And Carrie Anne Moss fares the worst of all. She had lost so much weight, she looked haggard. And Trinity's role in the third movie was relegated to strong, long-suffering love interest, albeit a gun-wielding, kung-fu kicking one. It was as if the movie could not sustain more than one bad-ass female character and Niobe had filled that vacancy.
All in, I wish the sequels had not been made. Without the sequels, people will continue to exercise their imaginations and speculate about its mythology and what The One was meant to do. Now, that is truly asking questions and letting the audience find their own answers. Without the sequels, The Matrix could be remembered untainted as a classic. This will still be its legacy, I hope.
Labels: Movie Reviews
posted by gentleice the deptfordian at 6:25 PM
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