I booked my ticket well in advance at the nicest cinema an hours drive away for opening night, worth it for a movie that has been such a cornerstone of my life in so many ways. The last time i saw a movie on its opening night was Star Wars Episode II, likewise at the best cinema to fully soak up the experience.. so me and a handful of my friends at the age of 15 or so got the permission of our parents and caught a train at night 40min away and walked several blocks at night feeling quite proud of our new found independence and at the cinema the vibe was alive! There were people in all kinds of Star Wars outfits and everything was so incredible. My experience at the Matrix Resurrection opening night tonight was quite the opposite.. it was mostly middle aged people, quiet, averting eye contact, no conversation, no excitement in the air..
I'm 34 now, not a teenager, i don't need costumes and hype, just a good movie made by real artists which plugs into the backbone of our humanity implanting us with deep life altering food for thought that will continue feeding us with said food for decades to come whilst we digest.
Being 13 yrs old when i saw and fell in love with the first Matrix film in 99, already feeling so grown up at that point from facing what i thought where harsh realities of our world, but unknowingly a stage of my life I'd look back on for decades to follow as a time far simpler, when i comparatively had my life more together and far far more to loose than i do now. Its hard not to be faced with these memories as i re-immurse into this story without experiencing a sense of loss.. loss of family, friends, health, the place i grew up, the people i grew up with, my innocence and my youth.. i can't get these back, having done everything the best i can as righteously and ethically as i can I'm a lone wolf now just battling my way through a life that doesn't seem fair or to have a very bright end, certainly devoid of any love or connection.
All that personal stuff helped me relate to Neo in Resurrection. Heck I've always related to Neo.. in 2006 i earned a green belt in Kempo after years training and black belt in Karate 2010 greatly inspired by The Matrix and The Karate Kid. After 2010 I've been in sylvatical mode.. silent peaceful warrior introspective monk mode.. with moments of real weakness and moments of incredible strength and sacrifice, and creativity has always been the bread and butter throughout. Knowing and seeking deep truths of our reality and been chastised and further alienated everytime I've tried to do anything good about it. In 2019 after 9yrs abstinent i had enough of trying to fight the good fights so i started metaphorically taking the blue bill, trying to indulge in a bit of blissful iggnorance, but 2021 comes along and has other plans. "See the choice is an illusion when you know what you have to do". This year I'm taking steps to reclaim my strength and not give up on love, next year I'll continue that mission and I'm learning a new martial art Jiu-jitsu which i hope will help give me a less binary approach on the world.
As for the movie itself.. look it was brilliant, there's no denying that. I loved how it brought in more familiar elements from the animatrix, i loved how Neo is weaker than his former self but not when it comes to love, i love the direction the story took and there being a bit more graphic content like when you see Neo being dissected by the machines, i love the new (and old) characters, however i felt they could have talked more clearly especially at the start of the movie they're mumbling and talking too fast.
I wished the choreography would have improved after all this time but it was much the same as it always has been with the previous three (think crouching tiger), there were some cool techniques executed but overall the fight scenes were average along with a shaky cam to worsen it further, especially considering their abilities are meant to be superhuman effectively.. you'd do better to watch John Wick or Marvel's The Punisher if you like real martial arts and considering Reeves had put so much work in for his John Wick character I'd really hoped for some of that realism to spill over into this new Matrix film, but it really didn't sadly, so for a character that "still knows Kung Fu" lol, well he demonstrates very little. So fight scenes and scattish scenes reminiscent of Inception aside, I'm in it for the story and like i said, it delivered, but not without a few unanswered questions here and there.
So it's an 8/10 from a huge fan of The Matrix. Im not at all disappointed, but not really amazed either, just kind of integrating and digesting, unable to sleep at this point from drinking too much caffeine in the theatre lol.
Good work Lana and Crew. Just please get another fight scene choreographer in future 🙏
3 out of 7 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Tell Your Friends