Friday, October 24, 2014

The Matrix Movie Review

Hello there! ^^

I know... I have been gone for quite a big while, but believe me, I haven't been with my arms crossed... aside from my personal project I have also been holded by life circumstances and other problems... ya know; life just love to annoy us sometimes. I know that there is a long gap that I have left between posts.

You see aside from all my personal life problems, what happens is that I don't like to just post anything here that is either short or something I don't feel is worth talking about, aside from the fact that when I am doing my work, I sometimes disconnect from discussion topics; if you are a storyteller or an artist you probably understand; It´s about me trying to organize my ideas for the content I want for the blog.

When I started I wasn't really sure how to approach to it, I am kinda new to the general concept of creating content for the internet in general... all while working on my project by myself. I have a bigger and wider idea of how to keep a general content base for this blog, has well has planning on branching out to other sites and maybe types of content production regarding movie analysis, anime, game commentaries and other kind of stuff.

I am sorry if you felt like I gave up or went MIA... don't worry I am still here: I am just starting to look at other ways to continue doing this while making more entertaining, informative and complete takes on this kind of commentaries.

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AAAAAAAaaaaaanyway... I have decided to get back on track with my blog posts once again and just like I did with Harry Potter I have found a new series to look at "The Matrix". Back when it came out, this movie was pretty much a big revolution; it made such an impact in the public and on the industry that we started to notice a difference in the action genera. Back in my high school days I distinctively remember class mates talking about this movies, everything: the characters, the combat, the action, the story... it was a phenomenon!

Naturally I looked at this movies and... well... back then I wasn't that impressed, I did made the effort to get into them but I just couldn't find myself marveled by these films... either the world or the story itself; I felt like an outcast, I sometimes asked myself if I was not understanding this movies or just was not on the right edge.

Now that I am much older and movie analysis is something that I am into, I have decided to look back at this movie series and once again give myself the opportunity to find what made this movie franchise such a success... so once again I will be doing a marathon of movies, not just the famous trilogy but also the anime sorts of Animatrix.

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The Matrix was released on March 21st 1999 and it was a critical and financial successes across the world, it didn't made has much has it´s followers in the box office, however, it is the best received critically, I believe even the fans feel this one is the best movie.

The story fallows Thomas Anderson, a young man who lives not only has another mortal citizen in the world but has a hacker that goes by the name of Neo... he lives wandering and perceiving that the world is not what it seems. His whole life is put upside down when he meets a man called Morpheus and he is about the discover the truth about the Matrix... and he is going to discover it the hard way.

When I see this movie I see two very distinctive aspect that I believe are what makes this successful and click with audiences; the first is the action scenes, there is no doubt that the Wachoski Brothers know exactly what they are doing when it comes to show what goes on in fights, shooting and chases, this is a big deal for me, particularly because when I watch an action movie with lot´s of fighting and stuff: I like to be able to tell what is going on, who is hitting who or who is shooting what, etc... this is particularly important to get right specially when you are making a movie with so much going of in it´s action scenes that have many details you want people to see and the Wachowskis did very well on that area.

The other thing I notice is some of the philosophy concepts, the idea of the world where we live in not being what it seems and everything being a lie and the reality being something that we don´t imagine or see... blah blah blah... is not particularly new or original but the way the exposition is shown is very good; I think is the way they make the characters talk to one another... is quite dynamic and is very interesting; Now... I will take a little while to talk about something I call "The Table Scene Demon".

Usually in movies, series, anime and many other forms of story telling we sometimes have moments of exposition (for does who aren´t familiar with this concept is when you tell the audience directly what is happening instead of them figuring them out themselves), when you want to show exposition to either give concept to the universe you are creating or a background story to something this kind of circumstances usually come in the form of sitting down on a table and just talking; if this kind of thing goes on for long periods of time it becomes aggravating, boring and unbearable to the point that you has a viewer or expectator loose interest this is a particular issue I find on anime, but that´s a whole different topic...


The Matrix handles it´s exposition scenes in a much more interesting and entertaining way, you are seeing things, moving around or the characters are just directly doing it while they talk about it and I particularly think this is very interesting and fascinating, when they tell Neo about how the real world looks, they aren´t sitting on some kitchen while eating they are in a safe program showing it to him while exposing the audience to the films universe and it works great because it takes advantages of the possibilities that the universe provides and gets away with them. What I am trying to say is that these scenes are particularly enjoyable for how they are.

The Pill scene is maybe one of the most popular scenes not only in the movie but maybe of all time; there has been meemes done based on this scene for a while now. I think that one of the reasons why it works is because of the way it´s delivered to the audience; it´s stylistically shoot, well edited and just overall well directed... it really puts you in the shoes of uncomfortability and just trying to interpret the moment on it´s own. I am taken away by the "Alice in Wonderland" constant reference... I don´t know why it just does not stick well with me... like trying to shove a square shape on a circle hole...


Now for the bad things... the first one is the characters, they are just not very interesting to watch; now i believe that Neo gets a free pass here, I mean; he is the main character that is the common blank slate that we can project ourselves into and on that regard I think is alright that they made him like that because of the story the movie is telling, but the others are kinda "meh": Trinity is boring, Carrie-Anne Moss is beautiful sure... but the character is boring, Morpheus is meh and the rest of the gang is just there being "meh" too. This could have worked better if they could have had more screen time and being more entertaining (like showing more chemistry with one another). The only guy I kinda like was Tank, the dude who handles the computers and who wasn't born from the machines for the matrix... I actually wanted to learn more about him than the other characters.

The story itself is also kinda messy; I get that the matrix is a virtual reality where people live their lives not knowing that they are oblivious to the truth about their existence that they are actually serving has a battery for the machines after humanity somehow blocked the sun (an event talked about in the movie)... I can buy the rules the movie has placed for itself... but there are some scenes where I am like "no way really?". For example: there is one scene where Trinity is about to die in a helicopter and Neo saves her... my problem was when the helicopter crashed against the building, the building goes wobbly before the big explosion... why? i get that it´s a digital world but why would a solid object that it´s supposed to be interpreting reality would react like that to the coalition of an helicopter? did the matrix glitched? can the people inhabiting the matrix who are unknowing of the truth see it? does this happen often? why at that moment? it doesn't make any sense... there are more moments like that or others where characters are being dumb that just takes me away from my immersion.

I can safely say that The Matrix is a good action movie that delivers on what is trying to do; however I don´t think it´s one movie that was meant to be having followups or comics based on it, it was a hit so sequels had to fallow and well... we´ll get to does when we get to does... until then just know that this movie on it´s own is a great action flick that is worth watching and you will certainly enjoy your time with it for what it is.

I know I did... I just don´t think is has amazing has my old classmates were saying, not then and not now.

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Stay tuned for Reloded, Revolution and Animatrix coming up soon

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