Eighteen years later, Lana Wachowski rebooted the Matrix series.
The theme of "Brain in the Jar", which once led the times, has also been repeatedly interpreted in more than a decade, and it has long been obsolete, it is difficult to bring freshness to the audience, and the action scenes that once shined and made this slightly obscure science fiction movie "good-looking" have also been confirmed to have become mediocre.
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, these elements do indicate that the arrival of "The Matrix 4: Matrix Reboot" is not pleasing, although with its IP influence, there will be a certain guarantee at the box office, but it is difficult to become a legendary milestone like the beginning of the century.
After the release, "The Matrix 4: Matrix Restart" ushered in the waterloo of word-of-mouth, and the rating on IMDb was the same as that of Douban, which was a failed 5.7. The failure to give a more clear creative worldview background, and the large number of flashbacks of the trilogy, has been protested and resisted by fans who are already familiar with the Matrix setting; without the background accumulation of the previous trilogy, it is difficult for new audiences to be attracted by the new elements in this "old story" at once.
The Matrix 4 ultimately escapes an undesirable ending on both sides.
But what surprised me the most was the decline of the science fiction narrative, so much so that the movie looked like a romance. The idea of the "New Matrix" is almost entirely based on the lines of a psychoanalyst (the new character in The Matrix 4), and the plot direction borrows heavily from the trilogy, so that at first glance, it looks like a speculative routine — all of which make it difficult to distinguish whether this is a science fiction film or a pure love film in the guise of science fiction.
01
The first thirty minutes
Find a reason to go back in time
Since the last two hours of the film can be summed up in the original + "Neo Saves Trinity", we will feel that the first half of the hour is still remarkable.
At the beginning of the film, the setting of the "Matrix" trilogy was overturned, and it turned out that all this was just a popular online game designed and developed by the game designer played by Keanu Reeves. More critically, for Keanu Reeves, the game is just his escape from reality. He projects his dissatisfaction with his boss in real life and his admiration for the married woman "Tridini" into the game, solving the dilemma he faces in the game, but in essence, he has been avoiding this dilemma.
Although it is not new, the beginning of the story can be said to be reasonable. Keanu Reeves also performed the tiredness of this middle-aged game designer.
▲ Movie stills
Even if the first thirty minutes of the film are seen as a foreshadowing of Neo's subsequent awakening, it still has its own independent narrative core: an atypical Loser, paralyzing himself in the game, but does not have the courage to oppose his boss who has been harassing him, nor does he have the courage to pursue the woman he has admired for a long time - a story of midlife crisis seems to have seen the signs.
However, after revealing that all this is just a lie carefully set up by the matrix for the resurrection of Keanu Reeves, the development of the film has nothing to do with this part of the preparation. The first thirty minutes are like a machine part, set aside after completing its task.
After this, the story begins to revolve around "Neo saves Tridini", incidentally explaining the development of the human world and the machine world after a short peace, such as the machine world began to kill each other, such as the human world began to plant plants, began to use machines. Overall, it fails to provide a worldview as advanced as the Matrix trilogy, and then, Long Live Love: A Hollywood Popcorn Romance Drama Is Completed.
02
"You can't go away like a beautiful slogan"
At the end of the film, Neo and Trinity fly hand in hand, which reminds me of the fear of being dominated by "let us live in the red dust and share the prosperity of the world".
Fortunately, they didn't fly long before The Matrix 4 ended. Yes, that's it. In the first three Episodes of The Matrix, Keanu Reeves "resurrected" to liberate all of humanity, and now that the Savior is resurrected with an anxious and tired face, he only wants to do one thing, and that is to save his beloved woman. It's really moving. However, this is not a science fiction film.
The same plot actually appears in the trilogy, with Neo choosing the latter between All-Humanity and Trinity, but there are key differences between the two.
First, love is here as the engine that inspires Neo's true power and makes him a true savior to achieve human-machine peace; secondly, more importantly, "love" is reflected here, it is placed in a sequence of equality with other feelings, examined as the driving force of the evolution of this era, so although the Matrix trilogy's treatment of love has always been idealized, it is essentially a science fiction movie with strong philosophical implications.
Although there are thousands of definitions of love, the classification of love movies is still traceable in general. The most decisive or real can be Roland Polanski's "Bitter Moon", or Ingmar Bergman's "Married Life", which punctures the cold, cruel side of love and stops abruptly; then there is the trivial and destructive side of love and still chooses to believe in love, the typical example of this aspect can be Kim Kelly and Kate Winslet starring in "Warm And Warm With Light", and there is a large category that hovers on the edge of romance films, they are more about using a love story to tell something else.
For example, in "Truman's World", which is somewhat similar to "The Matrix", everything around the protagonist Truman is also false, and he is the only "star" in a reality TV soap opera who does not know the real situation. In this movie, the idealized love is also used as the motivation and clue for Truman to break through this false world, so it is difficult to say that "Truman's World" is a love film, although it does not have so heavy philosophical thinking as the background, but it is still closer to science fiction in terms of "bloodline".
However, when I watched "The Matrix 4" with the mood of watching romance, I realized that it was not a good romance film.
As a romance film, its weight in paying tribute to the original is too great. Carrying the sequel "Cross", its story skeleton is still "Matrix-style", because it does not generate a new structure from the theme, so the director's expression is more "powerless", and the audience's perception will be in the clouds.
The director once said in an interview that he wanted to make a film that "brings comfort to people". This is, of course, a good original intention, but the premise is that if it finds a skeleton and flesh that can hold it up.
03
Self-deprecation from the director
"Times have changed and the market is sluggish."
"I'm sure you can understand why the parent company, Warner Bros., decided to make a sequel to the trilogy."
"They told me they would do this with or without us."
"They made it clear that if we didn't cooperate they would terminate our contract."
Soon after the beginning of "The Matrix 4", the director "spit" himself and his old owner Warner through the mouth of the film characters, although it is impossible to determine that the fourth part of the Matrix series is a work forced to be helpless (director Lana Wachowski once said in an interview that he was also willing to remake the "Matrix Series"), but combined with the completion of the first three and the span of 18 years, at least the shooting of "The Matrix 4" is unlikely to come naturally.
The director also laughs at himself many times in the film.
For example, compared with the steady majesty of Morpheus in the trilogy, the new Morpheus complained everywhere that he was incompatible with the previous Morpheus; Keanu Reeves stabbed the mirror when he was not awake, he felt incredible, and when he saw Morpheus come to reality, the action of dancing with his hands was even more funny; to the back of the line was about to rescue Tridini, at the critical moment " Neo" could not fly, but revealed a slightly blessed little belly...
However, in addition to self-deprecation, there are still many innovations that can be seen. For example, "The Matrix 4" is not so much Neo's awakening as Trinity's awakening, where a little trace of feminism can be seen, and finally the two jump in the air, it is Trinity and not Neo who have the ability to fly first. Or for example, the setting of the psychological counselor, the riveting of the new matrix on the "feeling", and the reflection on the "right to choose" - the choice itself is the matrix infused with the ecstasy soup of human beings, etc., if you can remove the sense of separation in the overall plot, you can still see a lot of freshness.
In any case, it is still expected that the director who can make the "Matrix" trilogy can one day get rid of the shell of "The Matrix", find a solid and powerful skeleton for what he really wants to express, and fully reach the audience and himself.
Author | Yu sweets
Edit | Hu Zhanjia
Caption | The Matrix 4 Movie
Produced by | Zero LT(ID:LingTai_LT)