The Matrix Experience

I've been sitting on this one for a bit. I wasn't sure if I wanted to cover this here, or on the Domain, which has become all about movies. In the end, this site won out more because I needed something to rant about than due to any deeper decision.

So, I watched all three Matrix films, and watched the important scenes in the Game (which my brother-in-law played), and watched the Animatrix. I was left with some major thoughts, some cool ideas, and in general, just a bit of malaise.

Let's go at the movies first, and if for any reason you're reading this and haven't yet watched the movies, and you want to keep yourself pure for when you finally get to them well, don't read this. I am no marking what's a spoiler and what's not. Far as I care, it shouldn't be a spoiler by now, cause if you'd have cared, you would have seen it all by now.

The first movie was spectacular. The Matrix was ground breaking on a ton of different levels. Best of all, for us movie-philes, it had a deep enough plot that we all got sucked in and grooved for hours. I watched this flick on several occasions through out my life (post-Matrix release). There is nothing I can say just about this movie that hasn't been said before, so I won't try.

The second, Matrix Revolutions, seemed rather flawed the first time I checked the flick. On several levels it just seemed to rather lack. I think the biggest problem was that in creating a super-Neo, they took at the adrenaline out of his scenes. He really couldn't be hurt, so no matter what, we didn't have to worry about him. Later action sequences featuring Morpheus and Trin were cool, but again, they way it was setup, you just kinda knew that any danger they might get into wasn't really danger, cause in the end Neo would save them, which he did.

Oddly, the characters I liked the best from the second movie were Sereph and the Keymaker. I liked Sereph's style, and the Keymaker was just rather amusing. I really wasn't to into Neo and Co. for the above reasons.

After a couple of watchings, M2 has grown on me more. Not to concerned over how good this flick was gonna be, I could enjoy it on it's own merits, but while Matrix was a 5 star flick, M2 never gets above a good 4 star.

Of course, then we get M3. I really liked Matrix Revolutions least of all the films. While the action was top notch in the film, the characters they decided to focus on for much of the flick were ones we weren't totally attached to. Like, while it was nice to see Kid get his day in the spotlight, I would rather have had more cool stuff with Neo, or Sereph.

But, the thing that really got me was just how little time they spent in the Matrix. Yes, I realize that the war was being waged outside, but dang it, couldn't they have fought a two front war inside and out. Yeah, so Smith is taking over. They could have done something. The movies are about the Matrix. Focus on the good stuff. We wanna see the super powers and over the top action. After the heart pounding, that-shit-can't-be-real action, the whole war on Zion felt flat by comparison.

I was sad at the end too, cause for one, Neo and Trinity die before they even get to see the peace they helped forge. But, more-so, did what they do even matter? Neo was supposed to return to the core. Well, he did. There are people free because of him. the Matrix continues on as always, and the humans rebuild. How is this different from what we were told happened time and again? Grrr.

There really weren't a lot of plot points you had to remember from the game to enjoy the third flick. Even though it was cool to see it fit into the whole universe, really the game was unnecessary.

I did however enjoy the Animatrix. Not every short was superb, but there were enough groovy concepts in it that it proved to be enjoyable.

On the whole, while I liked having the second, longer visit back to Matrix that these flick provided, it really just seems unnecessary. on the whole to have made a trilogy out of the films. Of course, that also won't stop me from buying them when they come out in a boxed set.