The Matrix Resurrections

I watched a lengthy reaction video the other day and read a couple of reviews. I didn’t like it. It suffers from a mish mash of ideas, overly complex, convoluted plot to prove how clever the writers are.

The tone is off the first third is very meta and has a sneering attitude towards sequels and the franchise itself. They often stop and explain what it means. There is nothing epic or special in the fight scenes and I wasn’t impressed with the cgi. It’s an odd movie without a compelling story or reason to be made. I think most Matrix fans are going to feel disappointed and unsatisfied. The magic and mystery of the first movie is long gone and it has a very tiresome feeling. How many times are you going to rehash the same idea?
 
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NorBro said:
The movie was made for a newer, younger generation.

It's not 1999.
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Yes true, different gen different expectations. Neither of my youngest sons has watched either 1 or 2. At least it made them curious to know about the earlier films in the trilogy to the degree that both have said they will watch them.

Chris Young
 
That’s a good point maybe it’s a generation thing.

I was watching a video of a guy reading IMDB reviews that gave an obviously mediocre movie 10 out of 10 stars. I think many must be paid to boost the rating but I still think some are genuine. I believe this is because emotions play a large part role in evaluating a movie. I’ve rewatch movies from my childhood that I thought we’re awesome to be actually quiet terrible. It also could be because when you’re younger you have limited experience and haven’t seen truly great movies or are satisfied by mindless entertainment.

I’m trying to be as fair and neutral with my evaluation and just on fundamentals this movie is bad. Twenty years later we’re still quoting lines from the original movie, and rewatching exquisite fight scenes and iconic special effects that still hold up today. There nothing special or memorable in this movie.
 
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I never saw it, but I would like it because I like everything. But never, ever more than the first one because that one is too special.

With that said, I think film criticism is an interesting field because you have many brains - which are educated on different levels - analyzing, describing what they liked or didn't like about a movie in a certain time period.

An 80-year-old film critic who's seen it all will likely have a lot of experience which should surely sway an opinion one way or another versus a 21-year-old film critic grad who's also studied a lot of pieces over the decades but doesn't have the same brain and life experience for the analysis.

Not saying one is better than the other; just that professional film criticism - if taken seriously - is silly, IMO. People like different things.
 
I’ve never stopped being surprised how different people view and value things. This often comes up in elections where we can’t hide from this truth of how different we think. Is it too myopic to believe we should be able broadly agree on some criteria to evaluate a movie?
 
What's the difference, you know?

You like candidate A or you like candidate B, and you have your reasons why. (Or C/D/E/F/G...foreign films, lol.)

And those reasons are created in your own brain based on a vast number of life experiences (or not), and personal interests. Or more specifically, what you think filmmaking should be and what type of casting or performances you've imagined in your head (based on previous films, or not).

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It's similar with films...you have your critically-acclaimed models which many love, but there are always some who don't. If 100,000 (sample) love a movie and maybe 10,000 don't...what's going on in the brains of those 10K who don't approve? And why?

As a personal example: The Godfather is always mentioned as an all-time classic, or one in this genre, but it's not even in the top 10 for me. It's great, but something didn't resonate with me like with Scarface or Goodfellas, which I think both are much better.

Or for horror...The Exorcist is down the list compared to 1978's Halloween or even Pyscho, which I saw for the first time last year.

I guess we'll always compare films and criticize them (on different levels) because we can't just all like or dislike everything in the same way, but some are more open-minded or less toxic and negative about it (in general, not talking about anyone here).
 
NorBro said:
What's the difference, you know?

You like candidate A or you like candidate B, and you have your reasons why. (Or C/D/E/F/G...foreign films, lol.)

And those reasons are created in your own brain based on a vast number of life experiences (or not), and personal interests. Or more specifically, what you think filmmaking should be and what type of casting or performances you've imagined in your head (based on previous films, or not).

___

It's similar with films...you have your critically-acclaimed models which many love, but there are always some who don't. If 100,000 (sample) love a movie and maybe 10,000 don't...what's going on in the brains of those 10K who don't approve? And why?

As a personal example: The Godfather is always mentioned as an all-time classic, or one in this genre, but it's not even in the top 10 for me. It's great, but something didn't resonate with me like with Scarface or Goodfellas, which I think both are much better.

Or for horror...The Exorcist is down the list compared to 1978's Halloween or even Pyscho, which I saw for the first time last year.

I guess we'll always compare films and criticize them (on different levels) because we can't just all like or dislike everything in the same way, but some are more open-minded or less toxic and negative about it (in general, not talking about anyone here).
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It's not exactly what I meant. I can separate the two, whether the movie is good and whether I enjoy watching it. For example I might not like rom coms but I still can recognize good acting, cinematography, etc. I judge a movie on what it sets out to achieve. If it is supposed to be cheesy fun light flick and it does it well, then it's not going to win an Oscar but I can respect it for what it is. What I've come to understand many of these block busters franchises are written by committee. This is a very corporate approach that I leads to results that lack a cohesive story. Can you imagine reading a novel written by a team of people?

For movie a movie must to three things: 1. tell a compelling and understandable story. 2. develop characters that make me care about them. 3. execute the technicals to support the first two.
 
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Yeah, probably not the best idea - but sometimes individual writers (or maybe at most two) write what they think are wonderful stories and they are a miss with an audience, so sometimes you just can't win.

Anyways...it's not that important, and I personally won't see this movie until it's on TBS or somewhere.
 
NorBro said:
Yeah, probably not the best idea - but sometimes individual writers (or maybe at most two) write what they think are wonderful stories and they are a miss with an audience, so sometimes you just can't win.

Anyways...it's not that important, and I personally won't see this movie until it's on TBS or somewhere.
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For all my ranting. I'm not that upset or surprised the fourth movie of franchise such as this fell short of my expectations. Star Wars reboot, prequels, sequels cured me of cinema idealism. I'm also ok with people having different opinions.
 
You actually saw the movie, right?

[I wasn't sure because it sounded like you watched a review on it as well which you didn't like or something?]
 
cyvideo said:
Yes true, different gen different expectations. Neither of my youngest sons has watched either 1 or 2. At least it made them curious to know about the earlier films in the trilogy to the degree that both have said they will watch them.

Chris Young
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I'm not sure that 56-year old Lana Wachowski is an expert on what Gen Z likes!

Incidentally, my wife stopped watching Resurrections because she said it was so nostalgiac, full of clips from the original.

But then she went and rewatched the original, coming away saying that it's a masterpiece from start to finish!

So, I wonder if the point of Resurrections isn't just to get people to watch the original again... but I haven't seen the new one yet
 
NorBro said:
You actually saw the movie, right?

[I wasn't sure because it sounded like you watched a review on it as well which you didn't like or something?]
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I watched part of it then gave up on it, I saw the rest of it in a reaction video, and then finished by some reviews.
 
Peter C. said:
I watched part of it then gave up on it, I saw the rest of it in a reaction video, and then finished by some reviews.
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Seems unfair to the movie, TBH...but I'm not surprised as I don't doubt more people do this.

But, IMO, you should at least show the film respect and watch the entire thing before you (anyone) criticizes it in public.

Not even to see if you would change your mind, but to be more educated about the whole work so you can speak about it with more knowledge rather than forming more opinions based on someone else speaking about it (which is fine, but you should watch the entire thing as well).
 
Just saw it last night, and I really enjoyed it though it is definitely a big shift in tone / focus from the prior films. I wholly understand the divided opinions.

Spoiler: SPOILERS
The film gets really quite bonkers at times, but I appreciated their efforts to create a world in which modern audiences (who are aware of The Matrix trilogy) could still feel like they might be living inside of a new Matrix that is using their inherent distrust of the Matrix to keep them imprisoned. At times the huge shift in tone from the super-seriousness of the original Matrix trilogy to the much lighter, almost rom-com feel of Resurrections feels like the characters have escaped from the "fake" Movie Matrix world into our ostensibly true reality with the twist being that we are still all trapped within a larger Matrix. It is funny how aware the filmmakers are of some of the issues in the original series... as great as the original Matrix was it's super-seriousness does contribute to it feeling like more of a video-game story these days, rather than the mind-bending reality exploration that many view the series as through nostalgia glasses. Resurrections is a little too jam-packed though with not enough character development to raise the stakes to the level of the original, and the villains are pretty lackluster by original series standards. Oddly I could stomach the setup necessary to replace Lawrence Fishburne with Yahya Abdul-Mateen, but it really needed to have Hugo Weaving back... Jonathan Groff just doesn't cut it. I mean if you're going to bring back that crazy Merovingian guy, you need crazy Hugo Weaving as well as Agent Smith. NPH's character worked a little better, but he never really achieves true menace levels. That and the action never even remotely achieves the levels of the original.
 
Thanks, Peter! Looks like you just saved me 2 hours and probably entertained me more than the actual movie would have

this guy is like the new mystery science theater 3000
 
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