« Not So Famous Amos | Main | We Be Famous »
November 07, 2003
Innocence Lost, Again
I'm old enough to know that Star Wars was really cool, but not old enough to have seen it in the theater. I saw Empire in the theater, and a bootleg copy of Revenge of the Jedi when it first came out. As a child, these films consumed me. We had every toy that Lucas and Hasbro could market, and they're worthless as collectors items now because we actually played with them.
Bent, twisted, and broken, the old action figures take me back to a time when I didn't laugh at the bad acting. I didn't know what the "Star Wars drinking game" was, and I hadn't met a double-entrendre yet. Now, even the original Star Wars movies are funny. Campy. It's a different experience watching Star Wars now than it was then.
Last night, I saw the Matrix Revolting. We laughed at all the straight lines. The. "Dialog." Was. Painful. To paraphrase my brother, paraphrasing our high school English teacher, the symbolism had all the subtlety of a battle-axe. I wanted to like it so much more than I did. I wanted to not laugh at Kuhnunu until the third or fourth viewing, months or years down the line. But I couldn't. What it lacked in amazing action and groundbreaking effects, it more than made up for with a lackluster plot and thought-impeding avoidance of the philosophical issues that made the second movie compelling.
It was like that first post-high school viewing of Star Wars, when you said to yourself, "Damn, Luke Skywalker is a whiny little biatch"
To be fair, I had a great time with friends last night, and I don't regret seeing the flick. I had sufficiently lowered my expectations, and if you do the same, you'll enjoy your two hours. (It would be better if they stopped showing that damn Tom Cruise samurai movie preview).
Posted by buddha at November 7, 2003 04:34 PM
Comments
You should all see the Matrix.. it was worth every one of my ten fucking dollars. Fantastic, right down to Ke-nu-nu's goddamned crucifiction. Fucking Wachowski Bros. I left with the first real prayer of my life: Dear God deliver us from this Reeves as you did with Christopher.
Posted by: David Sykes at November 7, 2003 04:53 PM
I never saw Matrix II, mainly because I'm lazy. When I checked the reviews for the new one on Rotten Tomatoes, I was only slightly stunned to see that it got 35%. I'm fully considering the bitter avoiding the bitter disappointment raught by Episode I and not seeing either of the Matrix sequels.
As a side note, I still enjoy the original Star Wars movies. I'd like to keep the same enjoyment for the original Matrix.
Posted by: chocobo puduu at November 8, 2003 12:49 AM
I am old enough to have seen the original Star Wars in the theater (I was 12). I can still remember seeing the words scroll up the screen for the first time. To this day, I still think it's an amazing piece of work. Revenge, I thought, was OK on one viewing, but then those Ewoks get really annoying. Empire...well, I was 14 or so when that movie came out. Think about it. Carrie Fisher in that bathing suit, and a hormone-raging boy. You do the math.
Ok, so Matrix Revolted is getting hammered (see the article on it in Slate). But let's face it, while Godfather II and Empire were good sequels, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and any other movie with roman numerals in it generally has not been. Notable exception, from what I hear: The Lord of the Rings triolgy. But that was made in one fell swoop, not in stages as the others have been. The jury's still out on Kill Bill, volume II.
And everyone knows the Star Trek theory: the even-numbered ones kick ass, the odd-numbered ones suck ass. C'est la vie.
Posted by: greg at November 8, 2003 05:14 PM
What a terrible waste of amazing special effects. I went with some friends and we were cracking up at almost all the dialogue and mostly bored with the nonstop machine fighting. I turned to my friend at one point and said 'what, did Lucas write this?'
Oh, there were brief flashes of passable philosophy and dialogue but so few and far in between the pain.
I will say I loved the ending though and I can see where they were going with this (and I approve) but the path to get there was.......not quite worth it.
Posted by: DK at November 9, 2003 12:31 PM
Worst. Matrix. Ever.
god, I thought this was a Bay/Bruckheimer production, given all the military hardware in the epic battle scenes. "The 3rd Infantry Division meets the Aliens."
in all seriousness, the movie's structure reminded me of movies from another genre: adult entertainment. both feature ridiculous "dialogue scenes" that pepper otherwise non-stop action (the entire theater broke into laughter during one of these). both use tired cliche characters (compare Revolutions "kid" to Porn's plumber, mailman, etc). and both use lots of forgettable characters (Merovigian, Trainman, Persephone to the cast of any gangbang-related flick).
though I'm still trying to figure out what the moneyshot of Revolutions was.
Posted by: S-easy at November 9, 2003 05:31 PM
Based on all I've heard about this movie, I think I'm going to wait for the DVD.
Posted by: Terrance at November 10, 2003 05:07 PM