ONE OF US!!
ONE OF US!!
ONE OF US!!
It's true. I'm not trolling or being ironic. After learning the real behind the scenes power play that WB was making to the Wachowskis I stopped seeing the film as just a flippant mockery of the series' prior success and was instead Lana seemingly saying, "No way am I gonna let them take my beloved story and give it to Joss Whedon or JJ Abrams. No way am I gonna be George Lucas or James Cameron watching others take my characters off in directions that I don't want them to go. Fine, I'll continue the story but it's gonna be my way and if my disgust over the present situation comes through in the final product then so be it."
Angry or agonizing artists often tell really compelling stories. And I think that's the case here.
I also picked up on quite a few things that I missed the first time around.
I didn't realize that seemingly half the population in the Matrix were AI bots. That's why the husband jumped out the window and not the wife. She was human, he wasn't.
I appreciated the new Smith much more this time around. His role clicked with me better on a second viewing as well. The Analyst recreated him to be Neo's foil if the Resistance ever came for him again. Then in the event that humans show up to extract him Business Partner Smith's dormant Agent programming activates so that he can kill Neo before he gets out. Then they resurrect him again, reboot and reskin him with a new digital self image to start all over again. Forever. And since this new Smith was *not* a continuation of the previous Smith's "sentience" I no longer mind him not looking like Weaving. In fact the only characters played by the original actors were those who actually were the same characters from the previous films (aside from Sati I'm guessing, lol.) So to me the recast works.
I kind of got the vibe that Trinity probably looked different to everyone but Neo as well. Which might have been why her husband laughed when she asked him if she looked like the girl in the game.
Changing the Matrix so that it's no longer this hidden thing that people wonder about in the back of their minds but rather an in your face world famous gaming experience so as to gaslight anyone who might be inclined to suggest that the whole world is living *inside* the same game that they're all playing is absolute genius IMO. I mean think about that in real life. We've all heard those philosophical musings of "what if the reality as we know it is really just a dream, how would we know?" And questions like that can be fun to discuss. But then imagine walking up to your buddies and going, "actually I think we might all really
be in a false reality, and I think that it's the reality from the Matrix movies starring Keanu Reeves!" To claim that we were all collectively sharing an experience widely known to be a very specific pop culture fantasy would have you instantly written off as a grade A loon. So that's exactly what the machines did...
And then in addition to making the mere thought of questioning the matrix laughable the Analyst wisely gave Neo and Trinity pretty good lives. He got to be this awesome video game mogul and she got to have a picture perfect family. I loved the Analyst's line about how 99.9% of people spend half their time clinging to what they have and yearning for what they don't, constantly torn between fear and desire. Because it's totally true.
Yes the film was lacking in major action pieces but I think my two favorite scenes in the movie might be Neo and Trinity's coffee date and the Analyst's speech in the garage. And I'm not saying that to further diss the action I just really really like those scenes!
I liked when Neo said that he probably put too much of himself into the game. I picture Lana acknowledging that maybe he went to far in that same regard.
Or undercover Sati in the programmer's meeting speaking up about how she doesn't think that mindless action was what the Matrix (game) was really about. It made me wonder of Lana was the more philosophical of the two siblings and that without the other Wachowski that's a part of the reason the movie took a more philosophical and dreamlike slant overall. Who's to say but I can't deny that things like this are fun to ponder.
How does a movie with a character named Bugs utter the line "what's up doc" totally straight and NOT be cringy??? I don't know but I cracked a smile and wasn't bothered in the slightest.
Or have a line like "he's turning the bots into bombs!" A reference to the notion of bot driven review bombs? Don't know but that's pretty freaking hilarious if it is and it went totally over my head the first time through.
I get that many have written this off as another ST (though the RT audience score is pretty forgiving if that is the case) and I was right there with you! But then I laughed at the bit about the building being evacuated possibly due to "some 14 year old being mad about the latest update." Ha ha, I guess I was that 14 year old last week in response to this film, lol.
And did the Merovingian really shout to Neo, "This isn't over! I'll see you in a franchise spinoff!" Again played totally straight and not as a fourth wall wink to the audience! Again I get it if this stuff rubs anyone the wrong way but I've just had such a paradigm shift.
And man that one moment where they're rescuing Trinity and right outside her pod they have in a single shot Sati, Morpheus, two friendly floating mechanical creatures, Trinity and Bugs. Just consider the imagination all on display in that one moment. A glowing red hologram AI, swirling codex AI, a birdlike robot, a buglike robot, gooey pod human and a regular human! *That's* what I sign up for when I walk into a movie theater that's showing the ongoing story of the Matrix.
Awesome stuff.
And as I said before I really like that this movie does feel like a true extension of the previous three, with Neo and Trinity still center stage and a good number of nice twists and turns and things to ponder both during and after the fact.
