The teaser poster for Kill Bill (pt. I) makes it online. More appealing than the first trailer, at any rate. Also, in movie news, the trailer for Matrix: Revolutions is now available in Quicktime. I haven’t seen it yet, but word is it’s similar to the footage from Enter the Matrix.
Category: The Matrix
Not-so Neo.
By way of Quiddity again, a screenshot comparison of Dark City and The Matrix. I thought the former was overrated and the latter was vastly more enjoyable, but when you put ’em side by side like this…
Better Living through Death.
Meant to blog this last week but forgot: FPS games increase brainpower. Experienced players of these games are 30 percent to 50 percent better than nonplayers at taking in everything that happens around them…They identify objects in their peripheral vision, perceiving numerous objects without having to count them, switch attention rapidly and track many items at once. Glad to hear my endless logged hours of Day of Defeat have not gone to waste. And considering I rented Enter the Matrix over the weekend and spent an unhealthy amount of time beating it, I must be operating on a Zen plane right now.
Dot Matrices.
More fuel for the Matrix debate: A fanboy site posts the Niobe and Oracle conversation from Enter the Matrix. It might explain a few things, or it might not.
Whoa.
Just in case Keanu was getting too much fanboy goodwill in the wake of Reloaded, Neo talks John Constantine. And since I’m getting 100 hits a day from people searching for “Matrix: Reloaded spoilers” (I presume Tank isn’t one of them), here’s a transcript of the Architect scene at the end of the film.
Matrix 2.0.
So after two viewings of The Matrix: Reloaded, I have to say I liked it quite a bit better than some of the early negativity had suggested (although I’m glad I lowered my expectations.) [BIG SPOILERS TO FOLLOW.] To be sure, the first forty minutes of the film, including everything that takes place in Zion, is almost unwatchable. We’re talking Attack of the Clones bad. What with the ponderous soap opera interludes (especially the Jada Pinkett Smith love triangle, the fresh-faced kid recruit, and Link’s worried homefront wife…please), the big, goofy Bacardi Silver commercial (“Your night just got a lot more interesting”), and the mere sight of Councillor Anthony “Straight to Video” Zerbe strolling around in Federation hand-me-downs (why didn’t they just let Cornel West handle that part?), I could understand why Joey Pants (Cypher) decided to pull a Benedict Arnold in the first film. If I had a choice (which, given half of the lecturing in this film, is an open question, I guess) between wearing my sunglasses at night and styling in the Matrix or being forced to join the Matthew McConaughey memorial drum circle every Friday evening at Zion central, I might just cut a deal with the Man too.
But, right about the time Neo gets a call from the Oracle and reenters the Matrix in Chinatown (right under the hard-to-miss Heineken sign), the film finally starts to find its rhythm. Sure, there’s still a lot of overwrought “check out the big brains on us” grandstanding by the Wachowskis [we get philosophy lessons along the way from both a sleazy French existentialist (the Merovingian) and a perfectionist Freud-like (God)father figure (the Architect)], but if you don’t like a little pop psychology with your kick-ass kung-fu, then why exactly are you in line to see a sequel to The Matrix? Alas, Neo and Trinity still don’t really work as an onscreen couple, but most of the action setpieces are breathtaking (particularly the highway chase and truck fight…in the midst of all the new characters showing up, it’s nice to see the Agents still getting their due.) And as expected, Hugo Weaving is just wicked good fun as Agents Smith…they steal every scene they’re in. Finally, though it took me a second viewing to catch everything that was going on, the final meeting with the Architect made for a nice end-of-film twist that’s more inventive than where I’d originally feared they were going with the storyline (i.e., the “real world” is also part of the Matrix, just like every Freddy Krueger/David Lynch movie you’ve ever seen.) So, despite the egregious first act, I have to say I came out of Reloaded with a smile on my face, and am looking forward to seeing what November’s Revolutions has to offer, starting with this special trailer from the Enter the Matrix game. Hopefully, the third film will see a lot less of As the Zion Turns and a little more of the lovely Monica Bellucci….Silly Neo, don’t you know an upgrade when you see one?
Buggy Upgrade?
Less than 48 hours until The Matrix: Reloaded, and several SPOILER-filled negative reviews are popping up online. So, it looks like some diminished expectations are in order for Wednesday evening. I kinda feared this would be the case after X2 turned out so swimmingly.
The Matrix: Revealed.
What is Richard Corliss thinking? In a spoiler-filled article that’s more synopsis than review, TIME gives away the ending to Reloaded. I haven’t read the entire piece (since I’d rather not know), but scanned enough of it to see Corliss was breaking the plot down point-by-point. I expect this lame behavior in fanboy chatrooms, but in TIME? A bad call and a bad precedent…I hope the magazine – and Corliss – catch some flak for this.
One Hulk, Many Smiths.
In case it doesn’t feel like summer yet, Dark Horizons points the way to yet another Hulk trailer (Mr. Trailer is annoying, but the green guy’s look keeps growing on me) and another spoiler-heavy Matrix: Reloaded ad (although not as egregious as last time.)
Me, Me, Me…
The Matrix: Reloaded gets ever closer with this brand-new TV spot. I warn you – if you’re planning to stay spoiler free, do not watch this ad…I’m not sure how it fits in the film, but I still wish I hadn’t seen the last exchange…I fear it was a bit like seeing the Ents and the charge at Helm’s Deep in the final ad before LOTR:TTT.