Saw a video the other day (not in English unfortunately) with an analysis of how it actually makes sense from a themes and style perspective (e.g. the Wachowski’s work on the Sense 8 taught them how to go to a more “impro” kind of directing compared to planning everything with very established plans in their earlier works)
Curious to see what the opinion of the people here is
I watched it with some friends at one of their houses. Halfway through one of them said out loud: “This is kind of shit isn’t it?” I think that basically sums up my feelings on it. I won’t deny that they tried to explore some important themes but it’s such an unmemorable mess that I can’t even remember a few years out if they were successful at all. What I do remember is how uninspired and boring so much of the film was. Especially the fight scenes which are such an important core of the Matrix franchise.
I think they made it very clear early in the movie in a meta way through Neo’s job that nobody really wanted to make it but that they were more or less forced to by Warner Bros. And it seems like it was ultimately made by Lana Wachowski as a fuck you to the studio and went out of its way to piss off the audience.
Interesting, that was more or less my feeling as well.
The analysis I’ve watched recently changed my mind, I’m going to try to find something similar in English
I enjoyed it
Patrick Willems said something about it that made it all make sense. Then I forgot what he said, just like I did the movie.
It was bad. Not sure it was quite as terrible as #3, but definitely bad.
Oh it was way worse than 3. No matter how much you hate 3, the movie had a purpose and it fulfilled that purpose. It ended the series, definitively clearing up any questions I would have had about sequels. It was a definite end and let me move on from a complete series.
Honestly I’m not sure why people hate on it so much, what more could they have wanted?
So something I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is the premise of the new matrix.
Instead of being about the illusion of freedom and choice, it’s about chasing constantly tantalising and unreachable desires, with Neo and Trinity being out of each other’s reach “driving” the whole thing.
Obviously a reference to modern social media etc. But say what you will about the film, I always thought this was a solid idea and continuation of the first matrix’s metaphor.
There’s probably a bunch of artistic stuff out there on what the modern internet is to modern culture. But the image of two loved one eternally forced to be tantalisingly out of reach as the heart of modern society has stuck with me very boldly since I saw the film.
And I’m not sure I’ve seen anything even come close to getting to the heart of what doom scrolling takes away from us as people.
I thought it was a major let down, and I went into it with tempered expectations. The fights aren’t interesting, keeping but recasting Morpheus and Smith was weird, and it felt like it was just treading water throughout. Trinity flying at the end sort of devalued Neo’s role in the first three movies too.