The first film in the Matrix series was born in 1999, and it influenced not only the film industry, but also the fantasies about technology in the world. Even today, The Matrix is still avant-garde. And there may be millions of reasons why we love this movie, it may be Keanu Reeves's heroic appearance, those flowing martial arts scenes, or it may be those esoteric and true philosophical speculations, or those trendy art styles. In the 18 years since the end of the "Matrix Trilogy" in 2003, we hardly expected a fourth installment, The Matrix Reboot. But does this classic series IP that has been "sealed" really need a sequel?
People who oppose selling sentiment and fried cold rice usually hate remakes and reboots the most. They believe that such works are tantamount to blatantly swindling money, or becoming cheap listing products that are born only to meet people's long-term expectations. Unfortunately, fans' speculation about a sequel to The Matrix eventually came true.
"The Matrix: Matrix Reboot" can probably be regarded as a film with a purpose beyond the film itself, and the results obtained by each person watching the film will be different depending on the starting point, which has become an interesting thing. The reputation that has collapsed almost at the first time of the film does not need to be said, and many people shout "bad film" is also understandable. From the second half of the film, the plot takes a sharp turn, and the audience can immediately know that this is not the "Matrix" that fans are looking forward to.
The whole movie is only worthy of praise for the first half of the hour. A large number of the content that breaks the fourth wall is like the director's self-talking lines, which has become the complaint of Lana Vadjols, who is in charge of the independent director, to warner executives and even the world. This part of the content directly criticizes the existence of the sequel culture and the restart culture, and such a cry is written into the script of the movie in a very clever way. This technique is quite useful for people like me who have been criticizing Warner's business strategy for many years, and the fusion of video games as a creative method is undoubtedly quite interesting and clever, so the whole first thirty minutes, especially the parts that have little to do with the "Matrix", are quite enjoyable.
But this is not the case in the second half. Although the second half of the film is a continuation of the previous work in terms of plot, and it also extends many of the original worldviews, it seems a bit chicken. Everyone knows that The Matrix Reboot forced Neo and Trinity back to life, and the plot of the entire film revolved around both of them, which also led to the second half of the story. The film's original multi-layered plot line has been completely dissolved, becoming a pure mission line to save Trinity. The plot of The Matrix Reboot is to see how Neo rescues Trinity, who is once again under maternal control. Yes, you could argue that Neo's creation of this episode for love sounds very romantic, but it is also too far-fetched.
The combination of new and old actors is probably one of the few highlights:
Keanu Reeves and Carey-Ann Moss return to play Neo and Trinity are undoubtedly a dream come true for fans, and the new faces add to the cast: Agent Smith, played by Jonathan Grove, is quite exciting in every scene; Jessica Henwick's rabbit is perhaps the best part of The Matrix: Matrix Reboot; and the eccentric version of Morpheus in this film is only controlled by Yehya Abdul-Medin, who wears all kinds of strange costumes.
I can say that The Matrix Reboot is made up of great ideas throughout the film, but the problem is that the movie is really not good. The fragmented narrative and the massive line-based plot advancement directly lead to the whole film as if many different interesting ideas are superimposed, but almost everywhere in the film can be seen that it is the conflict caused by excellent ideas and poor execution.
In terms of plot, as the anti-sentiment parties say, you can see a film trying to tell you that it's "not selling feelings" and showing through a series of cool clichés that it "doesn't want to be a reboot movie." However, films that should be self-aware have become "clowns" on their own. Do you love those cool shots? But they keep telling you, "I'm different from other sequels/ I'm a different sequel." ”
The problem is that it's not a sequel out of the ordinary.
Too many scenes of breaking the fourth wall and constant flashback memories take up most of the two-and-a-half-hour film's length. This continuous decision-writing technique of breaking the dimensional wall sacrifices the fight scene, which is the element of the Matrix series that has become famous. We all know that Keanu has proved in "Fast and Furious" that even after more than a decade, he is still very good at fighting, and even more and more able to fight, and the other new actors in this film have also proved their action skills in their respective works. So why do you insist on cutting back the scenes of this film, knowing that fighting is already an important element engraved in the DNA of this series?
This is probably related to the absence of the Hong Kong Martial Arts Finger. But it's more likely that the director himself has lost interest in how to revolutionize the action scenes in Hollywood. The battle scenes that appear in this film are either flashed and cannot make any impressions, or they are replaced by some explosion scenes.
Perhaps the only truly successful plot line in The Matrix: Matrix Reboot is the life-to-death love story between Neo and Trinity, with a long time span that even has a cyberpunk version of the "Love in" trilogy. The sacrifices the couple made for the future of humanity in The Matrix: Matrix Revolution are clearly worth fighting for, a fact that neo can hardly believe at first.
The polarization of the evaluation of the whole film is somewhat different from the two poles mentioned in the past, and there is a comment in the overseas media that I think is very appropriate: "After watching this film, I want to discuss with others, but no one has the same opinion." So it's more like opening up an infinite set of options, letting the audience choose the route you believe or want to see, and then starting this 'reboot' journey."
We still see the same movie, the same ending, and it doesn't change because you choose a different route to start, but the mood in the process can be different. If you choose to see a trilogy-style sequel, you may be angry; if you only care about whether Neo and Trinity can continue the frontier, then you may be satisfied, and this choice echoes the theme of The Matrix all along – do we really have a choice? Or do you just choose what you believe?
The interpretation of such a film also means a personal choice, and it can even be said that this movie is more like a dream made by Neo swallowing the blue pill. Yes, everything is false and never happened, but for Neo it is what he chooses to believe, like this time before waking up Trinity, who was sleeping in the mother's body, and the bystander asked, "What if she is happy inside?" ”
Neo is convinced that Trinity is not happy in the matrix, because he believes that the two of them will not be happy without one of them, so he resolutely decides to wake her up, and it does not matter what the truth is. So if all this is just a dream, seeing the scene of Neo and Trinity kissing at the end of the sunset, there will always be people who will think that this dream is beautiful, even if it is only a dream.
In many ways, Matrix Reboot is like a fanwork, a self-deprecating work, like Marvel's last year's anime series Infinite Possibilities: What Ifs, which changed the fate of the characters and corrected some past regrets. It doesn't have the gorgeous action scenes of the first three episodes or the rigorous plot. It can be felt from the character lines and the self-deconstruction of the game, the director actually wants to express himself, but the power is not enough to cause the whole story to appear fragmented.
In fact, the "Matrix Revolution" of that year also had this situation, but this time it lost the continuity of the trilogy, and after jumping out of the whole atmosphere, the unique fourth part was even more inconsistent.
Warner eventually put the film on HBO Max and released it in parallel with the theaters, more finally showing this self-deprecating black humor. Especially compared to the fidgeting when I first watched it in the cinema, after I sat in front of the TV and brushed it easily, I felt more and more like a complete spoof, which was filled with too much bad taste that did not belong to this level of production, both for Warner and for the "Matrix" IP itself.
Lana can be said to be innovating and destroying at the same time, just like many movies have villains who want to transform the world, they always want to destroy everything before recreating. The Matrix: Matrix Reboot is a modern version of The Matrix, and innovation and destruction are like a double-edged blade. Lana Wachowski of course knows this, the name "The Matrix" is originally the "original sin" that the "matrix restart" cannot change, but she voluntarily bears this "original sin", after all, from the beginning, she did not want to make a super emotional sequel that caters to the expectations of fans, otherwise how could she give up the classic elements on which the series became famous?
Of course, not everyone cares what Lana thinks, and there is a big vote of "The Matrix" trilogy fans who only want to see a sequel that matches the trilogy. But the biggest difference between Lana Wachowski and many directors who have rebooted their classics is that she is neither worried about the so-called late festival or the feelings of fans. Now it seems that at least her purpose has been achieved, that is, to seal her own scriptures with her own hands and no longer let people invade this former holy place.
The first part of The Matrix cost $63 million that year, and the two sequels cost $150 million. According to recent reports, the production cost of The Matrix: Matrix Reboot has come to nearly $200 million. However, when the audience sees the last few scenes of the film, they will realize that these budgets are a bit exaggerated even if they are inflated, especially compared to the original version that was extremely shocking 20 years ago, and have no idea where the budget of this movie has been spent.
And this kind of cult fun even runs through to the technical level, making the whole movie, even if it has A-level production costs, in many places more like a B-grade film that is concocted at will without money and time. In a serial shot of a warehouse fight, neo is supposed to be talking, but it turns out that it is Agent Smith who moves his mouth, and Neo is facing the camera with his back to the camera. This kind of blockbuster needs to go through multiple teams to finally release, so the appearance of such bugs in the sequel of this heavyweight IP has to make people feel that some people from the director to the Warner executives seem to be bent on messing things up.
As for those who are worried about whether they need to revisit the classic trilogy, otherwise they will not be able to understand the film, they can rest assured that this movie comes with all the memories you need to remember to watch the movie, plus more classic shots that you must not forget. What's more, those scenes will be repeated over and over again in the film, and perhaps director Lana Wachowski wants to create a feeling that people are still trapped in the matrix after 20 years, or that she herself has not escaped from it after all these years.