:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Thursday, November 06, 2003 ::

Matrix Revolutions Review

Review contains spoilers in black text, copy and paste to read in full.

A film about The Matrix, set almost entirely NOT in The Matrix, but still containing just as much dodgy physics, only without the plausible explanation of it being in a computer simulation. Indecently, I got very bored of the shock wave in the rain special effect used many, many times in the final battle.

Not even the Fetish Club scene saves this film, although it does distract the attention for a welcome couple of minutes.

There is barely a line of dialogue in this film that isn’t ambiguous. No character has the faculty to say what they mean, give advice and even take a shit without pondering over the meaning of existence in way that does not make the audience think “oh yes, that’s an interesting point” but “stop talking bollocks and get the fuck on with it!”

The ending where the Gamesmaster agrees to let Neo fight Smith for him in return for peace is laughable. The machines are really going to stop trying to kill the humans because they helped rid them of Smith who they weren’t even convinced was a threat minutes before? The humans are fine about the rest of their race still being used as food for the machines? The Oracle thinks that the peace will last “as long as it lasts.” Well that’s informative. You actually mean until you decide to make another film, right?

The question I found myself asking myself halfway through this film was “Do I really care what happens to these characters?” And the answer I came to, when I had plenty of time to consider this during Trinity’s endless, but hilarious, Sean Bean rivalling, death scene, was “No”. No, I really don’t give a fuck about this anymore.

The love story is the most unconvincing I’ve seen in years. The supposed bonds between all the human characters are all two-dimensional. In fact, most of the characters are just clichés and stereotypes that I’m totally sick off.

Example: Tank Girl type character with a Bazooka and woman only there to help save her man fumble around and manage to take out two huge drilling machines that no one else seems to be trying to attack. Why are there not more people trying to do the same thing?

The second the young guy who isn’t old enough to be aloud to fight appears eagerly pushing a trolley load of ammo and tripping and sending it flying you know what’s going to happen. You know some senior officer character is going to tell him he can’t get involved cus he’s too young, he’s going to protest and somehow convince the officer (but not the audience) that he should be given a shot at it, he’ll get to do some menial job, he’ll see lots of death and destruction, when everyone else is dead he’ll pick up a weapon and make some strategically critical move that turns the whole battle around, etc etc. It doesn’t disappoint. This is exactly what happens and it is exactly the kind patronising Americano trite that has made almost every Hollywood “blockbuster” this year the steaming pile of shit that it is.

The Hollywood studios have convinced themselves that poor box office this year was down to text messaging allowing bad reviews to spread too quickly. They can no longer “buy” a guaranteed audience. The root cause of poor box office however is not text messaging, it’s the fact that they are making truly appalling and offensively ill thought out movies, seemingly endless lines of sequels and even remakes of thing that should never need to be remade, moving all of the action to the US and replacing all of the characters with Americans along the way. What was wrong with the original Italian Job? Why did The League of Extraordinary Plagiarism (on top of sporting the most offensively bad movie physics since The Core) replace the female founder of the League and give her a honorary gent bit part then add a skill-less American dip-shit to the League who you just no is going to end up being the person who finally takes out the villain in the end? Just guaranteeing American audiences are happy are we? What is the American preoccupation with their own imagined superiority?

Hollywood, please, make some PROPER FUCKING FILMS!

:: Dan 6.11.03 [Arc]    ::
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