So Much “I Don’t Care!”: The Mule Craps Out!

The Good: Makes the subject of the film watchable, Acting is all right
The Bad: Dull plot, Unlikable characters, Utterly unremarkable.
The Basics: The Mule is a film as dull as watching paint dry . . . or waiting for a guy to take two craps.


Lately, NPR has been a good source of entertainment suggestions for me. A few weeks back, I heard an interview with the author of a new biography of the creator of Wonder Woman (that review will be forthcoming, as I have almost finished reading the book!) and when I picked up the book, I discovered it was at least as engaging as the interview had promised. There have been a few other products they have recommended that I’ve tried that have been similar hits. In fact, the only “miss” so far in recent memory was The Mule.

The Mule is a film that is playing in limited release in the United States and is an Australian import. A period piece, The Mule is like . . . well, no other movie I can think of. It has the mood and pacing of Lilyhammer and the sweat and late-70’s/early-80’s ick factor of American Hustle (reviewed here!). It is, quite literally, a film about a man waiting to poop. Based upon a true story that one has to wonder why Jaime Browne, Leigh Whannell, and Angus Sampson felt needed to be told (much less made into a film), The Mule lacks spark, excitement, or characters even remotely worth sitting down to watch.

In Melbourne in 1983, two weeks before he is having his anal cavity inspected by airport security, Ray is a loser, living in his mother’s house and working at a television repair shop. Surprised when his local football club names him Player Of The Year and awards him with a trip to Bankok, Ray starts to get excited by life again (doing things like punching a bully at a party and demanding his lunch break from his lazy, somewhat overbearing boss). But almost immediately, Ray learns that him winning the trip was a hoax, a set-up by his best friend Gavin and the local club owner/gangster, Pat. Pat wants Ray and Gavin to smuggle heroin back from Thailand and when the job promises to pay off his stepfather’s gambling debts and keep his beloved mother protected from mob harm, Ray begrudgingly agrees.

After swallowing the heroin in Thailand, Ray heads back to Australia, where he is stopped because he’s acting twitchy. Enter Detective Tom Croft and his determined, but corrupt, partner Paris. On a court order, Ray is detained for a week so he can have two bowel movements, pass the drugs, and go to jail. While Ray’s lawyer works to get him released early, Croft tries to manipulate Ray into confessing and pooping. As the America’s Cup race captivates the officers detaining Ray, Ray works to outwit them and get the drugs out of his body and back to the ruthless Pat before he is caught.

The Mule is about the wait and the games law enforcement plays in order to try to get what they want and the problem is that the film is not a story with any clear purpose. None of the characters are particularly good, none are likable and none even rise to being the status of cinematic archetypes. This is not a story even about shades of gray; it’s all shades of dull.

Arguably the least-dull is Hugo Weaving’s Croft. Croft wants Ray and his drugs, but he wants the man Ray is working for even more. He is determined and dedicated to his job and, despite some near-the-line coercive attempts with Ray, he manages to remain within the bounds of Australian law. Unfortunately, for all of Croft’s goodness and determination, he (in the fictionalized world of The Mule) is nowhere near as smart or observant as viewers might want to believe. He is outwitted by Ray and he fails to recognize just how corrupt Paris is. While Croft toes the line and is attentive to what is legal, Paris eagerly leaps over the line separating legal and illegal and degenerates into pretty overt violence to try to get what he wants from Ray.

As for Ray, it is virtually impossible to care about him one way or the other. Ray is doing something illegal and his motivation is not the strongest – he is more the subject of peer pressure, plagued by his own lack of resolve once he goes through with his friend’s request. So, whether he gets caught or not does not matter all that much to the audience and so The Mule ends up as something of a waiting game. Co-writer, co-director and second-billed Angus Sampson plays Ray with a slouch and matted-down hair and all the energy of a retired chronic masturbator. While Sampson plays the part ably, he does not make the character any more watchable.

The result, ultimately, is a movie that is not worth trekking out to the cinema for, nor even bothering with when it inevitably ends up as a freebie on any streaming platform.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Seventh Son
Match
Vice
Paddington
Inherent Vice
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
The Interview
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Annie
Comet
Horrible Bosses 2
10,000 Days
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
Birdman

3/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Journey Builds, But Is Not Resolved, In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

The Good: Decent acting, Special effects, Moments of character
The Bad: Very much a transition movie
The Basics: Suffering from all the expected problems of a middle act, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is entertaining, but holds up less well on its own.


In the history of film and plays there have been few things more difficult to pull off successfully than a middle act. Middle acts within a work have the responsibility of moving the plot along and bringing characters to a situation that will require the final act to resolve. The benefit of the middle act is that it can usually move unencumbered by character establishment. As a result, middle acts can be great for character development, but on the plot front there is little in the way of resolution and some people dislike middle acts because – in order for the plot and character development to actually occur, the sense of conflict usually reaches its peak in the middle act. That usually makes middle acts darker and more moody than the initial and final acts.

In terms of trilogies, the middle film usually bears a responsibility that is tough for viewers to reconcile. Many times, they lack the initial spark of the first film in the series and the viewer does not get the elation of resolution that the final film brings. In my mind, the most successful middle act films have been limited to The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!) and The Dark Knight (reviewed here!). Unfortunately for fans of Peter Jackson’s interpretations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is not going to break that tradition.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug picks up where The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (reviewed here!) left off as the prequel story of Bilbo Baggins’s journey with the dwarves that made him an outsider among the Hobbits of the Shire. The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is, foremost, not a tight film; the movie meanders with side stories that flesh out the various characters and the setting of Middle Earth. But, given how characters like Legolas pop up in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug without feeling absolutely essential to the main storyline and how Smaug would have been sufficiently villainous without the extensive backstory Peter Jackson includes in the film (courtesy of other volumes Tolkien wrote), the film feels more like an exploration of a fantastic setting rather than a tight character journey that is pushed by the strength of Bilbo Baggins, the menace of Smaug or the failings of Thorin Oakenshield (though all those are factors in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug).

Following the attack on the Dwarves and Bilbo, the assemblage regroups by fleeing into the residence of a skinchanger (a man who can turn into a giant bear), who hates the orcs more than he hates the dwarves. With Gandalf heading out on his own, the Dwarves and Bilbo enter Mirkwood Forest. There, they encounter giant spiders and Bilbo is instrumental in saving the dwarves from their webs and bites. The elves of Mirkwood surround the Dwarves and capture them. Bilbo helps the Dwarves escape the elves and gets them closer to the Lonely Mountain, where Thorin intends to reclaim the Dwarven homeland. After the barrel ride downstream, the fellowship arrives at the human village of Lake-town. There, the humans warm to the Dwarves as they have been menaced by Smaug once they are exposed and their shifty leader sees an opportunity to usurp the threat.

Thorin calls upon Bilbo to make good on the contract he has with him and Bilbo is sent into the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo enters Smaug’s lair and there he encounters the dragon, setting into motion the events that push Middle Earth toward a war.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug does a decent job of foreshadowing the fatal flaw of Thorin Oakenshield. While The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey painted Thorin as the obvious hero of the prequel Trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug starts to insinuate that Thorin is not an honorable Dwarf and that his motives for getting into the Lonely Mountain and reclaiming the dwarven kingdom is not based on a noble intent.

The film also does a good job of making Bilbo Baggins seem more morally ambiguous than some of the other Middle Earth films – especially the prior film. Baggins was hired as a thief and while he does several heroic things in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, he illustrates an aptitude for escape and light-fingered thievery. In fact, in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Bilbo Baggins’s actions actually bring surprising destruction at the breath of Smaug. If Thorin’s anger and greed are foreshadowed, it is Bilbo who goes a long way to instigate the incidents that bring those defects to the surface.

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is entertaining and it illustrates well the range of both Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage. While fans may geek out over the return to the franchise of Orlando Bloom whose career seems to have it its high with The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!) and the addition of Evangeline Lilly from Lost (reviewed here!), the real story for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug comes from Freeman and Armitage. Richard Armitage does a good job of taking a pretty monolithic character of Thorin Oakenshield and adding layers to him. While many of those layers come from written lines, it is Armitage’s performance, his bearing that sells the underlying emotions of the character. Armitage emotes with a fire in his eyes that actually resonates and sells some of the lines that do not quite resonate.

Martin Freeman might well be one of the best comic actors of our time. In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, he pushes the range of what he can do. He’s been sidekick in Sherlock and an able supporting comedic presence in films like this year’s The World’s End (reviewed here!). As Bilbo Baggins he manages to present a more serious character who is still fun to watch and engaging. In other words, despite moments of goofy body language, Freeman holds his own as a serious and viable character who is fearless in the face of the virtual dragon. Freeman plays Bilbo with a straight face and a sense of moral ambiguity that fits the character perfectly, all without hinting at being the same actor who played any of the other roles he has! Freeman is a perfect chameleon actor in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug and that sells the reality of the film wonderfully. One never feels like they are watching Martin Freeman; like Ian McKellen (who is all Gandalf all the time he is on screen), Freeman completely embodies his character in the real and virtual sets of Middle Earth.

But, ultimately, even at nearly three hours (one struggles to guess what Peter Jackson will put back into the film for the inevitable Extended Edition), The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug feels like it is just getting started when it reaches its climax. Like most middle act films, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug leaves one wanting more and feeling like they are dependent upon the final act to make a true judgment on how much they enjoyed this film on its own.

For other works with Lee Pace, please check out my reviews of:
Breaking Dawn, Part II
Lincoln
Marmaduke
When In Rome
Pushing Daisies - Season 1
Wonderfalls

7/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Living Up To The Hype: Cloud Atlas Is Smart And Complex!

The Good: Wonderful acting, Great make-up and effects, Creative concept, Decent plots
The Bad: Misses some important events/deliberately obscure at points.
The Basics: Told in six distinct time periods, Cloud Atlas follows the reincarnated variations of several characters who interact to change and save the world or humanity through their actions, beliefs, or art.


When I miss a movie in theaters these days, there are remarkably few I pine for and make an immediate effort to see when they are released on DVD; it’s the nature of being a reviewer, there is always something new to see, review, and promote. So, when I missed Cloud Atlas theatrically, it says something about my level of interest that I managed to get it in to watch so soon after its DVD release. The truth is, it was a film I wanted very much to see and given how many preview trailers I saw of it, I was pleasantly surprised how much of the film there still was to be seen (it’s a long movie). In fact, my only gripe with the promotions for the film was that the key voiceovers that explain much of the thematic points and narrative structure were included in the trailers.

Cloud Atlas is based upon a novel that I have not read and thus this is a very pure review of the film alone. With Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis have now redeemed themselves for Speed Racer (reviewed here!) and they once again prove they have the magic touch for making films that are visually incredible and tell stories about humans overcoming amazing odds and all forms of oppression. The film, however, is long and gory with a climax that sees the demise of so many of the characters that when I, in a moment of wonder at the movie, exclaimed, “How the hell did this movie ever lose money?!” my wife glared at me pretty heavily.

Cloud Atlas is a rare film that is not easy to discuss without giving away major spoilers. However, in defying my usual format, I won’t spoil virtually anything in the film by foregoing the usual plot summary. Cloud Atlas has an interwoven narrative structure that leaps very abruptly between six different time periods. As a result, there is little point trying to discuss any single narrative at length because one of the fundamental points of Cloud Atlas is that many of the main characters are related and interact as different incarnations of themselves in each of the different generations.

Told from the perspective of a man in the distant future, Cloud Atlas flashes back to and meanders through the intertwined stories of a lawyer who is part of a slaving mission and is being poisoned by the ship’s doctor on his way back home, a young composer studying at the feet of an aged composer who is not nearly as talented as he is, an investigative reporter digging into a story on a nuclear reactor in 1973 and all the corporate forces working to stop her from exposing the dangers of the facility, a publisher who is on the run from murderous hooligans when his previously unsuccessful author gains overnight success after killing a book critic, a cloned worked in the future who is given the chance to becomes something much more than she is when her “programming” fails, and a primitive man living on an island after what is essentially the apocalypse who must help a civilized woman reach the nearby ruins of the long-lost civilization, while avoiding cannibals and his own inner demons. Laced between the threads is a musical work that many of the characters create/remember/dream of or otherwise share and the themes of humans in oppressive situations fighting to overcome the political and social conditions that keep themselves and others enslaved.

Cloud Atlas is a film that demands to be watched as it is packed with details (like the idea that the clone in the future story is the deity worshipped in the most distant future timeline!) and the directors bounce between time periods assuming the viewers are keeping up. I liked how each time period had its own dialect and while that frustrated my wife, I found it engaging to sit and mentally translate the concepts both past and future. Cloud Atlas does not slow down to explain itself, but almost all of the keys one needs to understand the film are present on screen. In fact, the only glaring omission for me was that the disaster in the future that led to the technological reversion in the most distant time period was not shown.

What makes Cloud Atlas worth watching is simple; while it plays to the same old themes the Wachowskis (who co-wrote – or adapted – and directed Cloud Atlas with Tom Tykwer) are known for, they make the struggle for freedom and dignity feel fresh again. Visually, the film is a marvel with seamless CG animals, amazing sound effects and make-up that should have won many, many more awards than it did (never have so many great actors worked so hard to be utterly unrecognizable and not trade at all on their celebrity!). Cloud Atlas lives up to the heights one expects from the Wachowskis when it comes to the quality of making big, bold, films.

The real story of why to watch Cloud Atlas is in the way the directors get amazing performances out of the entire cast. While greatness is expected of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving, younger cast members like Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, James D’Arcy and Ben Whishaw hold their own with an apparently effortless ability. The cast is incredible and well-utilized (though poor Hugo Weaving needs to appear in a Wachowski film as something other than a villain!) and they are so engrossing in their performances that even for the recognizable actors, it is very easy to get drawn into their characters and forget anything outside the world of Cloud Atlas.

Ultimately, Cloud Atlas is engaging, clever and utilizes the film medium exceptionally well, making it well worth watching . . . more than once!

For other films with Jim Broadbent, be sure to check out my takes on:
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Inkheart
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
Nicholas Nickleby
Gangs Of New York
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Smilla’s Sense Of Snow
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol
Brazil

8/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Sacrifice Of Philosophy For Effects Drags Down The Complete Matrix Trilogy

The Good: Interesting setting, Surprisingly good acting, Great initial idea, DVD bonus features, Effects
The Bad: Characters become progressively less interesting, Plot becomes rather formulaic, Themes gutted for effects
The Basics: The bonus features for The Complete Matrix Trilogy are amazing, but not quite enough to overlook the poor (but great looking/sounding!) source material.


Once upon a time, there was a great idea for a film. One brother went to another and said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could make a movie where we presented the idea that all of our lives right now are just simulations controlled by machines to keep us all in check while they drained us of energy to power themselves?" And the other brother said, "The people would never buy that, it's too complicated." And the first brother said, "But we could make it with incredible special effects and popular actors and intriguing characters and hide our themes of the values of life and freedom in among the gunshots and car chases!" And the second brother said, "We should do just that!" And they wrote it. And they directed it. And it was good.

And it was The Matrix.

And then the screwed it all up by adding onto the film with the vastly inferior The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions! Why couldn't they just quit while they were ahead?! I have rated a number of film trilogies this year, like The Indiana Jones Trilogy (reviewed here!) and the Back To The Future Trilogy (reviewed here!) and while they might have had their issues, none of them take quite the nosedive away from what they were than The Matrix Trilogy, now compiled into a 3 disc set.

For those unfamiliar with The Matrix Trilogy, this was a series of three science fiction/action adventure films that pitted humanity vs. machines in an all-out battle for survival and control over a ruined Earth.

In The Matrix (reviewed here!), Thomas Anderson - a hacker who goes by Neo in the virtual world of cyberspace - is approached by a group of hackers who offer to wake him up to the reality of the world by helping him break free of the Matrix. Neo accepts and suddenly finds himself in a war-torn, barren world on the run from giant Sentinel machines that are slaughtering the last free humans on the planet. The rest of humanity is plugged into the machines, their minds existing in the virtual reality world of the Matrix (an ordinary world and life by any objective standard) while their bodies are used to generate energy for the machines! Trained by Morpheus, Neo soon takes up the mantle of savior to the people trapped within the Matrix and he returns to the constructed world to free the people there.

In The Matrix Reloaded (reviewed here!), Neo appears to have not blown the minds of everyone in the world of the Matrix, but instead created a monster in the construct in the form of Agent Smith, who now has the ability to replicate himself by absorbing individuals within the Matrix and making them into himself. As Smith goes on a killing spree to absorb everyone he can in his hunt for Neo, Neo works to balance his role as savior with his love for Trinity and formulate a way to destroy the Matrix while Morpheus desperately tries to protect Zion, the last human city.

The story is concluded (or is it?) in The Matrix Revolutions (reviewed here!), where Neo finds his way out of the Matrix with the knowledge of how he may defeat the Agents Smith and liberate the humans still trapped by the machines only to discover that one of the Smiths has managed to enter the real world. As Neo fights to save the enslaved humanity, Morpheus marshals the forces needed to try to prevent the millions of Sentinels boring down into Zion from killing every last free human there.

The fundamental problem with The Matrix Trilogy is that it starts as a fairly well-conceived, highly philosophical exploration of reality, perception and the nature of freedom and the value of freedom over tyranny. What it degenerates into is a pretty mindless giant special effects battle movie that shoots everything and does not care much for sensibility or reality and instead goes for the glitz and the shiny objects. Where The Matrix ended was perfect and if the films had continued in that direction, instead of a big-budget special effects movie, the next films would have been allegories about the responsibilities of a god to the world it has dominion over. But no, instead, in order to continue the trilogy, The Matrix reboots with stories that allow the films to continue by retelling the first story but with a different ending. In other words, this was a poorly conceived trilogy. Great first film, mediocre and abysmal sequels.

Now, don't get me wrong, if you like mind of mindless, big battle special effects movies with less in the way of talking and characters relating, The Matrix Trilogy works out just fine! This set gets most of the talking out of the way in the first half and allows for the second half to be filled with giant action sequences, massive amounts of gunplay and hand-to-hand battles that will make your nose bleed just watching them! (They gave me a headache anyway . . . ). The problem - for those of us who like something more and who like some measure of consistency - is that the first film, while packed with action and more than enough intrigue to keep us rewatching it over and over again, is not set up that way. It is anything but mindless and so when we go into the Trilogy and discover there is a great deal of thought and philosophy behind it, we are ultimately disappointed by the abandonment of that by the time the final film comes around.

That said, there is a lot that The Complete Matrix Trilogy does right. First, the stories do have interesting characters, even if their characters get somewhat gutted by the end of the three films. The principle, consistent characters throughout the Trilogy include:

Neo - An ordinary working class man who has a glimmer that something is wrong in his world when he discovers he is not living in the real world. Freed from the Matrix, Neo succumbs to suggestions from Morpheus that he has a greater destiny and might well be the one to end the war between the humans and the machines by freeing the enslaved minds trapped within the Matrix and bodies that are plugged into the machines powering it. He soon discovers he has powers that verge on godhood and his exploration of them is complicated by a growing love for Trinity,

Trinity - A tough-as-nails sidekick of Morpheus, she falls in love with Neo when helping him realize the extent of his powers. Uncertain how she fits into his life when he becomes something of a religious icon to the freed people of Zion, she redoubles her commitment to freeing everyone from the Matrix by any means necessary, even if it were to cost her her life,

Morpheus - The mentor to Neo who helps free him from the virtual world and becomes obsessed with the idea that Neo is the One and therefore somewhat infallible at destroying the Matrix. He devotes his attention to protecting Zion and leaving Neo to himself once he has set him on that path,

and Agent Smith - One of the defense mechanisms of the Matrix, he starts as a simple human security program designed to stop dissidents within the construct. After Neo overcomes him, he finds his programming altered and he goes rogue. Obsessed with destroying Neo and all biological life, he begins to clone himself through the Matrix becoming a threat to everything and everyone!

Agent Smith is aptly played by Hugo Weaving, who played Elrond in The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (reviewed here!)! Weaving reveals his versatility in the role of Smith by going deeper and darker than most of us have seen him before. Weaving is stone-faced and ruthless most of the film so when he emotes - like when he wrinkles his nose in complete disgust at the smell of perspiration coming off Morpheus - it is powerful and expressive.

Carrie-Anne Moss plays Trinity and she is a worthy successor to other science fiction heroines like Ellen Ripley, Wonder Woman and . . . hmmm . . . pretty short list. Moss , like Fishburne and Weaving, plays the role with a duality of stone-cold affect and highly emotive. Her acting chops are won not when she opens the second film with a bang, but when she relaxes her body language and becomes vulnerable for the love scene, which illustrates her humanity and the depth of her character's love.

Lawrence Fishburne plays Morpheus and he is wonderful . . . in establishing his character. Fishburne plays the mentor role wonderfully and establishes Morpheus as a guide and sage with the body language of a warrior and guardian, but as the films progress, he is given less and less to do and while his character stagnates, Fishburne allows his performance to remain fairly static. He's good, but the Trilogy simply does not know what to do with his talents and they come to neglect him and his character.

But Keanu Reeves is the one with the burden of making part of The Matrix Trilogy make real sense and this is the role he was born to play. Reeves with his understated acting is the everyman Neo, the awkward man coming to be a deity. He plays the role with a slouch that evolves with his character until he owns the part. His deliveries are almost never melodramatic and he has a quality to him that lends itself perfectly to the more muted superhero role.

But for a giant special effects series, the devil is in the details. In The Matrix one of the wonderful visual cues to humanity's desperation - made all the more clear on Blu-Ray - is how threadbare the costumes are. Humanity is on the run, of course there are no sweatshops, er, factories making new clothes. But in the two sequels, with a budget, suddenly the people of Zion are pretty well coifed!

Similarly, for a film series that pays so much attention to style and look, it's amazing how much they cheat on some of the special effects. Yes, the big climactic battles are SO tremendous and huge in scope and scale that there is no possible way to take in all that is going on on the screen at any given moment. On HD-DVD the battles look good . . . what you can see of them. They move at a pace that is oppressive and overwhelming such that one gets the idea of the battles, the ebb and flow, but no specifics stand out.

I've long argued against the whole Blu-Ray/HD-DVD concept (I gladly admit that). My reasoning is simple: DVD is a wonderful, durable, enduring media and the highest grossing form of entertainment in the world for the past few years has been DVD Boxed set television series'. A lot of people have a lot of money tied up in DVDs and with television shows being the primary place they have their money invested, there is not much a higher quality DVD can (affordably) do for most consumers. Upgrading to any form of Blu-Ray is just milking people for their hard-earned money a second time (unless players are all backwards compatible) and that's just wrong.

My other reason for pretty much despising (well in advance of its release) the HD-DVD medium is that the vast majority of consumers cannot possibly afford all the equipment needed to fully take advantage of the enhanced medium. Well, my huge splurge in recent years was my HD-TV (reviewed here!) so I've had occasion now to occasionally test out an HD-DVD or Blue-Ray disc from time to time. Honestly, The Complete Matrix Trilogy is what this medium was made for! With a kicking system these films (especially the first) look and sound absolutely amazing! This DVD set is enough to make one believe in the Matrix it looks so real and sounds so vibrant on screen and over the speakers.

On the three discs, (one per film) there are commentary tracks (which have the cast and crew and philosophers discussing the making of and implications of the movies), 18 featurettes, music videos, advertisements, and trailers. This is essentially the "lite" version of the "Ultimate Matrix Collection," which also includes the Animatrix and some other goodies that tied together the franchise. The Complete Matrix Trilogy is just the cinematic Matrix adventures in HD and there are ample goodies for the fans. The nice thing is, for those who purchased any other version of The Matrix on DVD or HD-DVD, there is NOTHING exclusive in this set to make you want to buy it as an upgrade to what you already own. Conversely, one is not losing anything by purchasing this set; it includes ALL of the DVD bonuses from the "Ultimate Matrix Collection" as well as the picture-in-picture HD options from the HD version of that set. The only reason to buy this set is because you do not have the Trilogy and you're starting at the HD level and you don't want the Animatrix.

And honestly, I can't even recommend it for those people. The only one of these movies worth seeing is The Matrix. I'm sure there is (or will be) a single-disc DVD version of it with all the same bonus features. Go for that instead, this is not worth it, even though it makes magnificent use of the medium!

For the other film saga reviews, please check out my reviews of:
The Star Wars Saga
The Twilight Saga
The Dark Knight Trilogy

5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Returns Fans To Middle Earth, But Asks More Of The Audience.

The Good: Effects, Performances
The Bad: Pacing, Light on character development
The Basics: An adequate prequel, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey sufficiently starts the set-up for The Lord Of The Rings!


Prequels are a tough sell for me. In going back to make the prequel to The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (reviewed here!), objectively it is a tougher sell than some might expect. After all, the prequel films, which now begin with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey feature few real surprises. After all, the novel has been around for decades and, more importantly, it is instantly established that the protagonist cannot possibly die. This, usually, diminishes some of the enthusiasm for investing in a prequel. And, while it is hard for fans of Peter Jackson’s cinematic interpretation of The Lord Of The Rings not to let their heart skip a beat the moment the first words in the familiar typeface Jackson uses appear on the screen.

But the longer The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey continues, the harder it is to maintain that enthusiasm. While there is an immediate surge of joy to return to the familiar and magical setting of Middle Earth – though with the time spent now in Hobbiton, one wonders how the lesson on Hobbits in the extended edition of Fellowship Of The Ring will hold up when one sits down to watch all six films back to back – the pacing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is not as well-executed as in The Lord Of The Rings. Moreover, the stakes are no longer the world, so there is no sense of urgency to the mission the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, finds himself on.

Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit, living in Hobbiton, generally happy with his existence. But then, his home is overrun by dwarves and the wizard Gandalf the Grey. After being frustrated by the slovenly nature of the Dwarves and the indifference of their leader, Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo rejects the entreaties of Gandalf to join their quest. Uninterested in helping the Dwarves invade Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, to retake it from the dark forces that have conquered it, Bilbo has a change of heart once his annoying guests depart.

Catching up with the Dwarves, Bilbo comes to appreciate more what their fight is for as he comes to understand the importance of his own home. And through a series of conflicts with Trolls, Goblins and other monsters that inhabit the land outside Hobbiton, Bilbo grows closer to the Dwarves. After helping thwart a trio of Trolls, side trip to Rivendell and falling into a goblin trap, Bilbo feels he is truly a member of the company. His bond with the Dwarves is shaken when Bilbo ends up frightened and alone when he is lost in caverns, which puts him into peril he cannot even understand at the time and leads to a conflict with Thorin's oldest enemy.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is good, but for those looking for more than to be dazzled by the visual effects, it takes a lot of faith and the trust that this is an essential step in the character development of Bilbo Baggins. The visual majesty of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth – which still, is vastly better than what Guillermo Del Toro might have done given his creative repetition in his works – is tempered by a pace that is, at times, agonizingly slow. Say what you will about the multiple endings to Return Of The King, but they do something to resolve the massive scale of the films and make it more intimate. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey aches to build the world of Middle Earth and it does so without the sense of incredible importance that The Lord Of The Rings possessed.

That said, for a film that builds to the prequel moments of The Lord Of The Rings, with Bilbo encountering Gollum and discovering the One Ring, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey does what it can as well it can. The discovery of the One Ring is an incidental thing and, as annoying as that might seem, it makes it entirely plausible that a character as smart as Gandalf – as portrayed in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - would remain ignorant of it as long as he did. On its own, away from knowing where the Saga is going, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is just a slow build-up, a quest based on nationalism for a nation viewers are unlikely to feel compelling empathy for that abruptly ends well before it actually reaches its conclusion.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is somewhat low on character development; this is a film more concerned with establishing Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf The Grey, and Thorin Oakenshield, than it is with changing them. The film begins to challenge them, especially Bilbo, whose sensibilities about home and its relationship to the larger world slowly change.

On the acting front, Sir Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchette, and Christopher Lee, all flawlessly retake the roles they had in The Lord Of The Rings. Richard Armitage explodes into the franchise as Thorin Oakenshield and he is magnetic, albeit with almost the same level of screen gravitas as Viggo Mortensen had as Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings. The real acting triumph for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey comes from Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. Freeman had a role he had to both mimic and make his own, taking over for Sir Ian Holm’s Bilbo (a task made more potentially difficult by the aged Bilbo, performed by Holm, appearing in the film!). Freeman takes the challenge, managing to deepen the goofy aspects Ian Holm’s Bilbo and also bringing out the more serious side of the character. Bilbo is essentially a bit character in The Lord Of The Rings, so Freeman has to flesh out the character while still making it seem like he would reasonably evolve into the aged Bilbo. He nails it. Freeman has an amazingly expressive body language that makes him viable as a reluctant quest participant and he plays Bilbo as the common man, as opposed to even attempting to bring heroic stature to the character.

For those who can stomach the slower nature of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and the way it takes its time to truly establish Middle Earth – showing instead of relying excessively on voiceover exposition this time – will find themselves eager for the next chapter. For those who are not as into fantasy films, it is hard to see how this would be the one to sell them on the genre.

For other fantasy films, please check out my reviews of:
Beautiful Creatures
The Twilight Saga
Alice In Wonderland

7.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Anger And Revolution Without The Passion For It: V For Vendetta

The Good: Excellent dialogue, The human moments
The Bad: Violence without passion, Much of the acting, Aspects of over-the-top
The Basics: Failing in the realm of grandiose battles, V For Vendetta is philosophically sound and connects on an emotive, personal level, but is otherwise just long.


I went to see V For Vendetta blind. Not literally blind, but without having seen previews, not reading reviews, not knowing anything but the title, the actors and the tagline. I had anticipated - based on what little I knew of the movie - enjoying the political message of the film. I didn't. In fact, what had an effect on me was the personal elements. But, I get ahead of myself.

V For Vendetta begins as the story of Evey, a young woman sometime after 2015 who is out after the curfew in London. When the Fingermen, common citizens who act as a police force, stop her and begin to assault her, she is rescued by a masked man. The masked man introduces himself as V and speaks articulately and in poems and at great speed and Evey hesitantly accompanies him to a rooftop to witness a concert. The concert consists of music blaring over London's propaganda soundspeakers and crescendos into an explosion of a significant landmark building.

Later, V takes over the propaganda ministry and plays an appeal to the British people wherein he urges them to stand up and take back the government and their lives and a year from that day - November 5 - stand outside Parliament which he will blow up. In his escape, he rescues Evey and is reluctantly forced to keep her detained for the year in his Shadow Gallery, a collection of artifacts that the government has believed destroyed. Evey escapes and is captured by the government until she loses everything and becomes free herself.

The best moments of V For Vendetta are the personal ones and the nice thing about the movie is it never cheapens the resolve or conflict within the characters. So, the most obvious aspect of the movie - what is under V's mask - remains a mystery. But it's the peripherals that make the most moving moments of the movie. Deitrich, a celebrity on the British network who Evey knows, tells a heartwrenching story. Dr. Surridge, one who personally hurt V in the past, delivers the most beautiful and poignant line of the movie in a quiet point. She simply asks V (NOT a direct quote, sorry!), "Is it ever too late to say sorry?" It is such a perfect moment.

What Surridge's exit from the movie does it propel the plot along and from her demise to the end of the film, much is spent filling in the blanks that plague the viewer from the first half of the movie. We see a Totalitarian Britain, but we don't know how it became that way, save V's accusations that the populace has become complacent. So, the latter half illustrates how V himself was integral to the establishment of the State and the resolution of V's anger.

Much of the exposition is a function of an investigation by Finch, a tired-looking detective who is investigating V's first bombing. Finch is the human element that the movie turns on. Many might argue that V For Vendetta is V's story or Evey's, but it's not. V's story is what Finch uncovers, but because much of it is a cobbled together backstory, it is hard to find empathy for V. V becomes a tool for Finch's understanding.

Similarly, Evey is a tool of V. She is an obvious successor to V, but hardly a common citizen. Her backstory reveals a history of persecution and moments that predispose her toward V's philosophies. Far more compelling than watching someone who has known the government is wrong actually moved to action is watching someone who is a cog in that government learning the government is the problem and the power of that revelation leading to immediate action. That is Finch's story and that is what makes the movie watchable and enjoyable in the parts that it actually is enjoyable.

The problem is, those moments are not the bulk of V For Vendetta. Instead, they are the exception to the rule. The pacing of V For Vendetta is very off. Long passages of the movie are ponderous and drawn out. Refreshingly, V provides some of the longest monologues I have seen and heard in recent movies. This strikes me as real and it's nice to see in a movie. Unfortunately, when the action picks up and the conversations stop, the battles move at such speed that what is actually happening is almost impossible to visually decipher. The exception is the climactic battle, which is slowed for dramatic effect and is nice in that it is easy to see what is happening and make the whole thing make sense.

But the characters - the mains, V and Evey - are a mix of bland and terrible. V is defined as a monster created by the State, but is honest and has a purpose. What he lacks is passion. He is reasonable, reasoned and deadly, but there's no real emotion in his words or his actions. Thus, when he tears off his mask at one point and speaks words of emotion to Evey near the end, they fall flat because he has expressed no passion. This works if the point is to say that vengeance kills the soul, but then it's hard to believe the willpower that keeps V alive through his final sequences. That is to say, if one has the passion to endure and keep fighting, one has passion and that passion should be evident in some of the dialogue. It's not.

Evey, on the other hand, is just incomprehensible. It is hard to believe that a young woman who appears to have some measure of privilege, who witnessed her parents being dragged away as a child would defy the State weakly or wouldn't already be well on the road to being a terrorist. What I mean here is that as we learn Evey's backstory, it is obvious that she is the perfect candidate for V's movement. Her parents were taken from her at a young age and she was raised by the State and she witnessed government brutality. So, one might think she was either already subverting the government or was terrified of the government. The opening scene of the movie, Evey leaving after curfew, indicates she is not the latter.

The only characters that are worth watching are the ones most would think are peripheral. Dr. Surridge, only briefly in the movie, makes one of the most intense marks on the viewer. Similarly, Deitrich is so beautiful in his naivete that when he broadcasts a satire against the totalitarian leader Adam Sutler (hmm . . . could they make that any closer to Hitler?) he believes he might get away with it. And the story Evey learns of the actress is simply heartbreaking. These are the characters, the ones that flit in briefly, make a point and disappear, are what brings empathy to the movie.

And Finch. There's Finch. Finch is a brilliant character who is so much more than a symbol. Finch investigates an act of terrorism against the Party and begins to ask himself - and others - the questions a totalitarian state hates. And he walks a tenuous line. But he does it wonderfully. He's the man to watch.

Unfortunately, because Finch is played by Stephen Rea, a middle-aged non-Hollywood type, he does not get top billing. He deserves it, though. He out performs Natalie Portman by a hundredfold. Rea makes the movie watchable. He binds us to the story and his character represents all that V wants to accomplish, so the viewer is most interested in his movement through the story.

Similarly, Stephen Fry doesn't sell movie tickets, but he steals every single scene he is in. He is brilliant as Deitrich and if he and Rea aren't nominated for their roles in this movie, they were robbed. As well, John Hurt is brilliantly directed. I'm not certain how much of what makes his character work was actually his acting, but he is terrifically directed. Why? Sutler, who Hurt plays, is the leader of the totalitarian England. Usually, this is a role taken by one with charisma. Hurt is never on screen where he is not yelling and being angry. No charisma whatsoever. Directed for brilliant irony.

Unfortunately, despite her wonderful, subtle and powerful performance, Sinead Cusack as Dr. Surridge has so little a part in the film that to suggest she receive a nomination is almost ridiculous. If there was a "Best Performance For An Actress With Less Than Five Minutes Screentime," she would be a shoo in.

The other performance of note - for its adequacy - is Hugo Weaving. Weaving is given the difficult task of emoting while behind a mask and he manages to do that. Not so much with his voice. Thus, we have the character problem of V not being emotional, yet executing possibly the most elaborate cycle of vengeance seen in a film. But as an acting problem, Weaving uses body language extraordinarily well to make V . . . well, human. That's the most we might ask for.

Outside that, it's all minutiae and the big themes. The big themes are obvious to any progressive who has been awake the last five years. Totalitarian states are built on indifference and the sloth of an accepting populace. Ironically, Portman encapsulates this entire sentiment in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (reviewed here!) when, as Padme, she observes that democracy dies with applause, not horror. Here, the viewer is beaten over the head with the hyperbole of this, until one appreciates the details.

The main groups being persecuted are homosexuals and those who defy the State. So, for example, Muslims have all been expunged. Now, lacking Muslims, those who are killed are those who simply own a copy of the Koran. And while the rounding up and killing of homosexuals throughout the movie might seem over-the-top, one only has to look at the subtle obviousness of Totalitarian England. All of the characters in the movie are white. Homosexuals, then, become the obvious target. Why? They cannot be seen. Everyone who can be seen to be different is already gone. 'Gotta get those who are still hiding! That's the Totalitarian view. Divergence is the crime in a totalitarian state and it's something that V For Vendetta beats us over the head with. But, those who already get it will not come out feeling impassioned by the movie.

In fact, the greatest disappointment I experienced in watching V For Vendetta was in the audience. When the movie was over, the audience stood right up and left. No one was talking about blowing up the White House, so I suspect much of the audience just didn't get it. That's disheartening. This morning, I haven't heard a word about Fox News being hijacked by radicals who want us to fight our government's robbing us of our right to have our vote counted. Our "V's" haven't stepped up and when they don't, the writers and directors will have realized they failed.

For other films by the Wachowski brothers, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Bound
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
Speed Racer

7/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page by clicking here!

© 2012, 2006 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Revolting Conclusion To What Could Have Been A Classic: The Matrix Revolutions!

The Good: Moments of special effects, Daring defiance of audience expectations
The Bad: Speed of special effects, Lack of character, Terrible resolution, Abandonment of themes, Bad acting
The Basics: In a disappointing conclusion to a movie franchise gone wrong, The Matrix Revolutions forces the viewer to ask what kind of dimwits are enslaved by such stupid machines?


When I left The Matrix Reloaded (reviewed here!), I had some ambivalence. When I rewatched it, I came to appreciate it more. In the interim, I had seen The Matrix Revolutions, which may have been what softened me up for Reloaded again. It's important to note that Revolutions, in addition to "revolt," also means "turn over," which seems to be a double entendre the producers intended. For every bit of ambivalence I had after The Matrix Reloaded, the first time, I had dislike of The Matrix Revolutions. Here is why the series should have ended with The Matrix . . .

Beginning moments after The Matrix Reloaded, Revolutions finds our people in fairly dire straits. Neo appears to be gone and Trinity and Morpheus are hitching a ride on another ship, while the Sentinels are nearing the subterranean city of Zion. Neo finds himself in a holding room within the Matrix, having developed the power to jack himself in without actually being attached to a computer. Rescued by Trinity and Morpheus, Neo visits the Oracle moments before she, like most of the personalities within the Matrix, is absorbed by Agent Smith. As open war wages within Zion, Neo and Trinity journey to the machine capital city, stalked by the evil Smith made incarnate until Neo can face Smith inside the Matrix for one last showdown.

Right off the bat, the single most disappointing aspect of this movie is its complete abandonment of where the series had been. What was the purpose of the first movie, The Matrix (reviewed here)? It was to get Neo out of the Matrix because humans were enslaved by machines and they needed to be freed. Even The Matrix Reloaded found some time to debate philosophy and attempted to put up the pretense that the war was about freeing the humans who were enslaved by the machines. The Matrix Revolutions makes no such pretense. In fact, the closest mention that is made about freeing the humans comes as an afterthought at the very end of the movie and in a context that implies that there will be no humans freed (i.e. the humans in the Matrix are told they will have a choice, but given the nature of the revolution in the Matrix, there is little or no reason to believe anyone in the Matrix at the conclusion of the film would actually know or suspect they were in the computer environment.

Furthermore, for a film series that prided itself on innovations in special effects, The Matrix Revolutions seems to have no real sense behind the special effects. The perfect example is in the battle for Zion. The machines bore a hole down into the earth, into Zion, through which hundreds of thousands of Sentinels emerge. While the humans start firing at the hole right away (good strategy), many Sentinels make it through (as one might expect). Why then, would the Sentinels be so stupid as to remain in streams to be picked off? How have these idiot robots stayed in power without realizing the most elemental strategy, which in this case would be to get through the small hole, then expand as much as possible. Given the limited armaments of the humans, the Sentinels should easily have overrun them by simply forming a blanket (a wave instead of a trickle) once they were inside. It's that type of lack of sensibility that makes The Matrix Revolutions quite difficult to watch. Add to that that the special effects occur at ridiculously quick speeds. It's almost impossible to tell what is going on because the Sentinels and bullets and such are moving so fast.

Beyond the battle of Zion, we are left with our protagonists. In The Matrix Revolutions, we are down to Neo and Trinity as heroes because Morpheus - who was such a powerhouse in the previous pictures - is a complete nonentity here. Morpheus has a place in the film, but it's way back in the balcony. He does not advise Neo, he is not prophetic, he's not even interesting. Had he been left out of anything after the first five minutes, the movie would have evolved without any differences.

So, how are things with Neo and Trinity? Trinity is still a strong female character and Neo is still something of a dimwit who is trying to solve things with force. However, Neo's strategy in entering the machine city does beg the audience to ask three important questions: 1. Why haven't any humans before Neo figured out that if they want to destroy the machines, all they have to do is go above the clouds?, 2. Why did the machines build such an elaborate system for getting their energy as harvesting humans when they could have simply made really big poles to push the solar panels they depended on above the clouds? and 3. If the humans had noticed the machine inability to figure out how to get above the clouds, once their subterranean cities started getting wiped out, why didn't any of them strike up the idea to start building cities above the clouds?

Apparently, the Wachowski brothers assume we are all sheep or idiots that would never conceive these things. Watching their movie, I came up with these ideas within ten seconds. Ten seconds to come up with more viable, intelligent and inspired ideas than Neo or Morpheus. Hey reader, I am the One! One would think that with the fate of the entire human race on the line, the surviving people would become inspired and creative. Apparently not; they'd rather dance around in caves. Sigh.

My point in all of this is that Neo fails to develop into more than he was in the last movie. He's still a guy trying to fight violence with violence and as a result, the film degenerates into more battle scenes. This culminates in the least inspired fight of the series, when Neo takes on Agent Smith in the ruins of the Matrix. I said at the very beginning that I always wanted to see Neo expand his perceptions to the point that in his realization that the Matrix wasn't real and its parts had no affect on him that there should come a time that he is hit unbelievably hard and he is not thrown backward. Can you dig it? If gravity and force don't have an effect on Neo in the Matrix (because he knows his body is not really there), it does not matter how hard he is hit, he should not be pushed backward. Unfortunately, the Wachowski brothers never developed their idea that far and even in the last scenes of the battle between Neo and Smith, when Smith hits Neo unimaginably hard, Neo goes flying tremendous distances.

If it seems all I am doing is harping on the special effects and the fight sequences, you are quite perceptive. The reason for that is that they make up not only the bulk, but the substance of the movie. While The Matrix belabored philosophy and training, The Matrix Revolutions is almost exclusively a stream of battles and hand to hand combats strung together. There is little reason, less thought and almost a complete lack of empathetic characters.

In the end, the only thing at all noteworthy about The Matrix Revolutions is that it defies the audiences expectations in the end. Some of them, anyway. I was expecting the series to end, but they left far too many doors open for me to be left satisfied that they might learn from their mistakes and end it here. If nothing else, even more than the prequel trilogy to Star Wars, the Matrix trilogy illustrates the importance of quitting while you are ahead. Had The Matrix ended with Neo flying off with the godlike potential he appeared to have, we never would have been subjected to the pointless sendoff that is The Matrix Revolutions. This movie is only for those who have seen the other two, though it is likely to leave those who appreciated either of its predecessors woefully disappointed.

For other special-effects driven films, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Sucker Punch
Thor
Alice In Wonderland

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why Reloading The Matrix Wasn't The Best Or Worst Idea: The Matrix Reloaded!

The Good: Special effects, Moments of philosophy, Moments of acting
The Bad: Repetitive fight scenes, Boring analysis, Lack of emphasis on freedom fight
The Basics: When Neo, Trinity and Morpheus re-enter the Matrix, a fight ensues that defies reason or philosophy or the viewer's ability to appreciate.


Some things are best left as they are. That is to say, some films do not need sequels, some musical artists ought to be content with their one #1 hit, and some people who successfully publish books should be happy with the one they get out on the shelves. The Wachowski brothers had successful movies like Bound before they did The Matrix (reviewed here!). Once they had the smash with The Matrix, they should have been content to let that universe they created be. That is to say that the end to The Matrix was a nice end to the plot of that story. Indeed, when I heard they were doing a sequel to the movie, I said, "Unless they're doing a prequel, that's going to be boring; after all, who wants to see a movie about a god reorganizing the world?"

It is rare that I am so right and so wrong. That is to say that I was wrong in that the sequel to The Matrix was neither a prequel, nor a film about a newly formed god freeing the enslaved people of the Matrix. I was right in that outside the visual elements, most of The Matrix Reloaded is boring.

Beginning some undefined time after The Matrix ended, The Matrix Reloaded finds the war between the machines and the humans at a potential turning point. The machine army has discovered the last human city, Zion, and they are mounting an attack. As they drill toward the subterranean city, Morpheus convinces Neo and the Council of Zion that the battle must actually be fought inside the Matrix and, as a matter of faith, he believes Neo will win the war for them.

This brings Neo, Morpheus and Trinity into the Matrix to search for the Oracle and then the Keymaker in a series of pointless fights and witless chases that climax in a cliffhanger designed to get the viewer to watch the last installment of the trilogy.

What works in The Matrix Reloaded is that it looks good. While The Matrix was groundbreaking with its special effects, it also told a wonderful story about a band of humans trying to fight off slavery in a very physical, real form (i.e. being chained to computers for power) and in an intellectual level ("Free your mind"). The Matrix Reloaded spends about a tenth of the time on the philosophy and too much of it is raw exposition in the form of two exceptionally boring white men (Merovingian and The Architect). Basically, these two characters spend a lot of time talking about cause and effect and programming. Almost completely gone is the whole philosophy of what it means to be free and the importance of self-determination. Much of The Matrix Reloaded is about predestination.

The problem with this is that The Matrix ended with Neo having the big epiphany. Neo understood that anything that happened in the Matrix was not real, it could not harm him and he could undo it. In The Matrix Reloaded the closest the viewer sees of that is Neo's ability to see the actual programming around him. It's a cheap out used to cover the fact that it's almost impossible to do a movie about an omnipotent character. In short, if The Matrix ended with Neo understanding how to change the world, by completely defying it, the hold the machines had over the enslaved humans should have been broken and humanity should have been entirely freed.

Instead, The Matrix Reloaded spends a great deal of time with fighting. Neo fights Agents, Neo fights Smiths (who have returned with new powers), Neo fights Seraph, Neo fights thugs, Neo lets his friends fight the two badass programs that can make themselves immaterial. The short point: it's boring. We've seen Neo fight. We saw Neo fight in the first one. He fought, it was cool. He (and the audience) moved beyond it. By the second fight sequence in The Matrix Reloaded, anyone who truly enjoyed the depth of the themes of The Matrix is bored and basically saying "Get on with it!"

That said, The Matrix Reloaded was not the worst film I saw in 2003. It was not even as bad as The Matrix Revolutions, which completed the saga. The truth is, I liked The Matrix Reloaded more when I saw it the second time. I was still bored by the fights and I still thought the primal dance scene was somewhat ridiculous, but there was a lot to enjoy.

The first thing I enjoyed about it was Lawrence Fishburn's portrayal of Morpheus. Fishburn plays him like a quiet zealot and it's an intriguing role. Fishburn does amazing physical work with his stunts and makes us believe in Morpheus and the strength of his belief in Neo. At the end of the day, without Morpheus, the viewer would care a lot less about Neo. Fishburn adds presence to a great number of lines that could have easily sounded cliche from any other actor.

The second thing I enjoyed was the performance by Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity. She is flat out cool in The Matrix Reloaded. She moves like a cat, talks like a sweetheart lover poet and drives like a maniac. She is the most fun to watch in The Matrix Reloaded.

The other thing I liked about the movie was the scope. Entering Zion, a lot of effort is made to compare the surroundings with humans, so the viewer sees how very big everything is. There is a wonderful sense of architecture and physical majesty to the buildings in The Matrix Reloaded.

Unfortunately, that detail was not carried into the smaller details. One of the most sensible aspects of The Matrix was the detail in the costuming. The freed humans wore spun-looking, ratty clothes. They looked like fugitives and rebels. In Zion in The Matrix Reloaded, humans are wearing finely made garments that would take extensive machining to make. And in this world, we're at war with those machines.

In the final analysis, The Matrix Reloaded was a movie that should never have been made, but now that is has, it disappoints the sensibilities of those who wanted to see a thoughtful continuation of The Matrix. While some of the elements are exciting (the freeway chase, for example), most of the movie is visually fast, thematically devoid and repetitive in the most uninspired ways. Not for anyone who hasn't seen The Matrix and for those who loved it, save yourself the disappointment and let the series stay with the high note. Not for anyone who isn't a fan of science fiction either.

For other epics that push the envelope of special effects, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Watchmen
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Matrix: A Special Effects Classic Where The Casting Defines The Characters!

The Good: Excellent story, Good character development, Great effects, Wonderful acting, DVD Extras
The Bad: ? That sequels were made?
The Basics: The nature of reality is explored in an action-adventure context when an ordinary man comes to understand the real world . . . isn't!


One of the films that I frequently reference when I am writing reviews of films is a little film called Bound. Bound is a brilliant crime drama that is very intimate in scope (it has a remarkably short cast list), but surprisingly large in the way it was shot. It made the lives of two women who fall in love and take the Mob for millions of dollars seem like the most cinematic adventure that could ever occur within an apartment building. Years ago while waiting in line at a convention, I listened to actor Joe Pantoliano tell eager fans about Bound and how it was basically an audition tape for two untested directors, Andy and Larry Wachowski. According to Pantoliano, it was the cinematic success of Bound that proved to the executives that these two brothers, the Wachowski Brothers, could properly execute a little project they had been sitting on called The Matrix.

The Matrix is one of those films that begs to be seen on a big screen or, barring that, on the biggest television one may find provided that it has a pretty significant sound system. The sound effects in The Matrix are incredible and a great sound system makes The Matrix pretty much an indispensable DVD for the cinephile!

Thomas Anderson, a mild-mannered computer programmer, spends his nights writing computer codes and creating software to help others hack into places they are not supposed to be. His virtual life at night has made him a celebrity in the hacker world, where he goes by the name Neo. Anderson's life is turned up-side down one day when he finds himself pursued by mysterious agents whose job it is seems to be detecting and eliminating computer-related crimes. The agents, particularly one who simply goes by Smith, work Anderson over, but are not given the satisfaction of finding out any of the people he has done work for.

Following a surreal encounter with Smith where he is bugged, Neo is approached by others who seem to have the answer to the question that has been underlying Neo's cyber life: What is the Matrix? When he is introduced to a fellow hacker named Morpheus he is told that reality is not what it appears to be and he is invited to step out of the artificial life he has been living in and come into the real world.

The real world is a dark one, which Neo learns quickly. Humanity is almost extinct, having been killed off by sentient machines that have taken over the surface of the planet. The humans that are alive are either freedom fighters or mindless sleeping drones plugged into machines used as batteries to power the mechanical monstrosities that enslave them. The Matrix, then, is an artificial construct used to keep those legions of battery-people docile and inert, a virtual reality where they live normal lives oblivious to the truth. Accompanied by freedom fighters including Trinity, Neo is informed that he has a destiny, a destiny to destroy the Matrix and free all the enslaved people from the machines.

Despite what many think, the idea for The Matrix is hardly a new one. Only a few years prior, Fox had a television show that began to explore the nature of psychology and reality when virtual reality was involved called VR.5 (reviewed here!). William Gibson wrote Neuromancer (reviewed here!) a decade prior to The Matrix and it has remarkable plot similarities as well as thematic ones to it. I've pointed these things out publicly before and often the most vociferous defenders of The Matrix will tell me that it's not so much the story that is important, it's what The Matrix did as far as advancing special effects that makes it great. Usually, I point out to them that the film Dark City (a masterpiece reviewed here!) utilized many of the same visual stylistic elements about two years prior to the release of The Matrix!

The special effects defenders are wrong; the story is incredibly important. But it is also wrong to suggest that The Matrix might need defending. This film defends itself remarkably well because it is a tightly-written, well-acted piece that has viable and interesting characters, amazingly explored themes, and some pretty amazing special effects. The Matrix does not need to be defended because (unlike its sequels) there is nothing wrong with it.

The Matrix is a philosophical action-adventure film that asks the viewer to contemplate the nature of reality. How can we truly know what is real and what is not in a world where one may construct another life within the confines of a computer? Is cybersex cheating? The sex may be unreal and masterbatory, but the emotions are real, where is the line drawn? The Matrix envisions a world where our very sense of reality is as masterbatory as cybersex only we are too asleep to even realize it! Disconnected from reality, humanity has fallen to machines that oppress them by giving them a sense of being in a life they can comprehend.

But the philosophical exploration does not stop there. The character of Neo is a man on the verge of godhood. The Matrix is the story of understanding how one becomes part of something larger and how a hero rises up to become a champion for the oppressed. Neo is the everyman whose journey is to step out of his 9 to 5 job and become a savior to millions who do not even know they need him.

The brilliance of The Matrix is that Neo is a reluctant hero. Like the audience, Neo must be convinced as to the reality that parallels our reality. He must be shown, he must open his mind, and even then he wrestles with the implications of the dark future he finds himself in. Neo is not a generic action hero, he is an ordinary man whose feeling of not fitting in come from being programmed to believe that he is like everyone else. His journey is about losing the programming and becoming the man he (and others) believe he may be. It is the journey from Thomas Anderson to Neo.

But Neo does not go it alone. He is accompanied and guided by Morpheus and Trinity. Morpheus is a sage character whose wisdom and strength and leadership abilities make him a high target of the Agents. He is also one of the few people who knows the location of Zion, the last human city far underneath the earth. Morpheus is a spiritual man who is also able to fight with amazing proficiency and skill because he understands the difference between reality and the Matrix.

Neo's other ally is Trinity, a warrior woman who seems unsure about the destiny Neo is supposed to have, but implicitly trusts Morpheus. She is strong and secure and she wants to help Neo, even if she does not necessarily believe that he can succeed. And the romantic subplot between her and Neo does not seem nearly as forced as one might think.

Trinity is played by Carrie-Anne Moss who has a strong performance that powerfully differentiates between her character's invulnerable persona inside the Matrix and the more shy individual in the real world. Moss plays Trinity with a strong sense of humanity, compassion and loyalty when she is in the real world and an inscrutable deathmask when in the Matrix. It is surprising how much mileage one actress can get out of her eyes, but here Moss makes most of her emotions clear with just her eyes (when they are visible).

Laurence Fishburn portrays Morpheus and he plays him as the coolest mentor since Yoda. Written with a strong sense of spirituality, Fishburn transforms Morpheus into a powerful warrior/mentor with his stride and dignified bearing. He has a leadership quality to him that dominates every scene he is in. Indeed, with his powerful presence, he could have even made Star Trek: Enterprise palatable, had he been cast as the captain! Fishburn not only takes what could be a remarkably generic mentor character on the page and owns it on screen, but he also creates a sense of style and voice for the film that defines it.

It is Keanu Reeves that seems like he might be the weak link in such a cast, but the truth is, Reeves is perfectly cast as Neo. Thomas Anderson has to be a kind of mumbling loser, anyone can be him type guy and that's the role Reeves was pretty much born to play. But with the transformation into Neo, Reeves must overcome that and illustrate some genuinely heroic abilities and to the surprise of audiences everywhere, he delivers. In The Matrix, Reeves is able to play a transformational role as he evolves from ordinary man to superhero. Part of the reason the sequels fail (other than losing most of the philosophy in favor of pretty mindless action) is that Reeves is actually so good at what he does that the end of the film implies the end of the series. Yes, it is Reeves who comes into his own and comes to carry himself with the bearing of a hero after presenting himself as a schlub the first half that makes the character work. Reeves acts with confidence in the latter portions of the film and he does it in an utterly convincing way. This might well be his best performance!

All of the actors in The Matrix seem to be required to do massive amounts of stunts because this is an action film. This might be the film that truly opened the American public up to the idea of wireworks stunts. This is an action film that has a lot of people defying gravity, jumping surreal distances and being really flung around. The stuntwork is amazing and there's not a wire to be seen, but it might be the film - because of how many features were done on the special effects (which are on the DVD!) - that cracked the magician's secret about wirework.

On DVD, the film looks and sounds great. It includes behind-the-scenes featurettes on the special effects, casting and story. As well, there is a wonderful commentary track that is informative and entertaining. The bonus features will treat anyone who comes to the film looking for more, whether it is a first viewing or the hundredth!

The Matrix may have had to have been fought for, but it shows a clear mastery of storytelling and directing abilities from Larry and Andy Wachowski. We're fortunate they started their cinematic endeavors on such high notes!

For other works featuring Hugo Weaving, please visit my reviews of:
Captain America: The First Avenger
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Transformers
Happy Feet
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

9.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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