After seeing the Matrix the other day, I was left with a rather unfulfilled feeling deep down in my movie-reviewing heart. Disappointment is a bitter pill to swallow and getting indigestion afterward doesn’t help. This indigestion comes in the form of Enter the Matrix the video game which I’ll get to later. First I’d like to talk about the movie. Since I plan to do this at length, a convenient “read more” link is provided to ease the pain of an incredibly long post.
Alrighty, the movie, first and foremost, lacked in everything except for action and CG. And the action, unfortunately, was either over-the-top in places or simply went on too long. I’ll say this right now, to clear up confusion: I did infact enjoy the movie. It was a pretty decent action flick. It was not however, perfect in any right and talking about the negatives is always easier than the positives. Where was I, ah, the action. I paid my $5 fully expecting some action, and boy did I get it. Infact, I’d almost say I got to much of it. I’m sorry, that scene with hundred of Agent Smiths fighting Neo in the courtyard, it just went on for too damn long. Seriously, it was about 8 minutes worth of a 3 minute fight scene. It also seemed to me that they used “bullet time” in places where they wouldn’t have in the first movie. In the first movie it was such a neat effect that they used it to enhance the action, not simple during the action. Think of your favorite scene from the first movie. One of mine happens to be the rescue scene in the office building. The bullet time kicks in as Morpheus is running for the helicopter as a way of heightening the “will he make it” suspense. In Reloaded, it was almost like “well, I need to kick someone, better slow the action down.” Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I also had a rather glaring problem with the underground temple-techno-orgy scene. What the fuck was that about? First, that whole speech he gave was a tad pretentious and over the top. Second, when you show a shot of guys playing drums and start up the tribal dance beat, that’s fine, but when you kick in the base and the obvious “I’m from a turntable” techno-track halfway through, you’d best be showing me a shot of someone on some Technics. Then we’ve got to have the obligatory sex scene that everyone knew was coming but instead of making it a normal sex scene we have to tie it in to the rave that’s happening next door, implying that thats what people do when they listen to dance music. Plus, it went on and on and on. What should have been a quick scene turned into one of the worst in the movie. And it still wouldn’t stop. Long after I was convinced of it suckiness, there was still 10 more minutes of it. It was a giant nipple parade. Can you honestly tell me that the people who were smart enough as children to realize the existence of the Matrix and got unplugged have all grown up to be scantily clad, perfectly tanned, 20 year olds? I think not.
There’s also a few logic bombs I’d like to drop onto this little fantasy world. To being with, when you jackknife a truck on the freeway, traffic stops. Completely. Traffic does not continue on and you do not have anything to weave back through on a motorcycle. This doesn’t even begin to mention the 20 or so cars that got destroyed afterward. And don’t get me started on exactly how many bullets a Cadillac can apparently withstand and still be drivable.
My basic theory about this movie is that the Wachowski brothers wrote a really big script, enough for 2 movies. Then, in the screenplay/editing phase, some odds and ends were added to help tie up some loose ends and explanations. So, now we’re up to 2 and 1/2 movies. Instead of going back and streamlining the movies, back into 2 or even 1, they extended it to 3. I’m sure it was a good idea at the time but this movie feels like leftovers. The first movie was great, and judging by the teaser at the end of Reloaded, Revolution will be a great finish to the first movie, but this just seems like “extra”. Extra is never a bad thing, but sometimes it can just be a little too much.
Like I said above, I liked this movie, I just found some real problems with it. It comes in somewhere in B+ range, with the original movie being a solid A.
And, now for the other bad news… the video game is about the same.
Enter the Matrix follows Niobe and Ghost from slightly before the sewer-meeting in the movie and criss-crosses the movie at random points. Like the movie, I think it’s a solid effort but just not quite there.
For example, the control system is completely screwed up. There’s nearly no cross-hair control. None. You walk in a particular direction and if an enemy happens across your path, regardless of what direction he’s coming from, where he’s hiding, whatever, you “lock-on” with your Matrix powers and automatically aim for him. That’s fine and dandy, “auto-aim” is a feature in many a video game, but there’s no option to turn it off. There’s also no option for free camera and free mouse movement, meaning that your stuck behind your character the entire time. Unless of course you’re in “fighting mode” where you’re beating people down hand-to-hand style. In that case the game jumps to a horizontal fighting-game style camera where you see the side view of your beating. Also, the auto-aim locks on completely randomly at different distances. For example, if you’re clearing a large room the auto-aim might lock on to someone all the way at the other end and not the guy standing next to you. Try as you might you can’t shoot at the guy blasting you in the head until you’ve gotten rid of his friend 100 yards away.
That’s not all. The game is plagued with technically problems as well. The sounds overload and make that horrible screeching sound when there’s too much going on at once. When a whole team of bad guys are firing MP5s in your general direction it sounds like a train wreck coupled with a chalk board. It’s completely unacceptable. I’ve had to turn down “effect” sounds nearly all the way so that I can play the game without giving myself a migraine.
There’s also the small matter of “sniper mode” or the shitty excuse for what it should be. You hit a button, the gun zooms in. Of course, since you don’t have any control over where you’re aiming your damn gun this really doesn’t do much. They “tried” to give you control in sniper mode but it’s useless. It’s about as smooth as truck-driver after a long haul. There’s no delicate movement of the cross-hairs, everything is a big block’o’target. Thankfully the game is stupid in terms of realism so you can aim at someone’s feet and hit them square in the face. Way to go guys.
Also, the video options are a joke. Regardless of what you have the game set at it looks the same. I’ve tried everything from “safe mode” (640×480, no Anti-Aliasing, no texture filters, etc) to 1600×1200 with everything on. It still has the same clipping issues, it still has texture problems and it still looks like crap. I was more impressed visually with the Max Payne Matrix addon/mod. It was smoother. I just mentioned clipping but it needs to be mentioned again. It’s horrific. Players heads jiggle and blink in and out of existence and the gun constantly floats inside their bodies.
I was elated last night to find out that a patch was released by Atari that addresses both video and sound issues. Unfortunately the patch did nothing. This is a more than typical problem with movie based video games. They get rushed and are never 100% done, so they’re buggy as heck and then it take 3 months to get enough patches out to make it playable.
The only saving grace of the video game is the extra movie footage you get that augments the movies story line. You get to see the before and after of that meeting in the sewer for example.
All in all, I give this entire Matrix experience a B. Whether that’s a low B or a high B will have to depend on how many patches the game gets and whether or not this movie will be sold on it’s own 4 disk DVD as a marketing ploy or I can just buy the 3 movie box set sometime after x-mas.
Oh well. They can’t all be perfect.
Matt out.
huh, and here I thought it was around the same, but you do like your negatives…
I have read, and I agree that while the “rave” scene seems long, it’s not that bad. And the reasoning for it seems to justify it. a good reasoning that I have heard is that it is a celebration of being “real”, and being able to feel the mud between your toes, and warm bodies pressed up against each other. Also remember that not everyone who is in Zion was unplugged. Many of the people there were born free, and given that people are more active, and don’t have as many bad foods for them to eat, i could see everyone being lean and toned human beings. I saw the movie a second time, and it seems shorter. maybe that was just me expecting it coming or something, I dunno.
the game itself I have had no problems with. the control scheme works pretty well, and I kinda like the auto targeting. Then again, I have the Xbox version, and well, I guess we can chalk up your issues to “hardware incompatabilities. score another one for the console over the PC 😉 With your luck, you’re in the .01% of people who are having problems, even after the patch.
The Wachowskis planned on a trilogy from the start. although the last two parts will probably stand better together than on its own. I think there was a lot of storyline for parts 2 and 3 that don’t/ won’t make sense until people see 3.
I also see that you are touting the third one to be a “great finish for the first one”. Remember that you need to set up everything to make the third one as fantastic as you think it’s going to be. I went in to the movie thinking “hey, great action flick, but it is still only half of what is essentially the conclusion to the story”. doing this allowed me to not be let down that things appear disjointed or unnecessary. I have faith in the Wachowskis that everything in these movies was put there for some reason. I really think that the things that all these people had issues with will only really be appreciated come November.
Trust me, if anyone could appreciate techno music or a rave it would be me. I just didn’t understand it’s “sexiness”. They could have easily just thrown a big celebration, like at the end of Return of the Jedi, where all the little ewoks are partying down in the forest. Obviously not that “cute” but you get what I mean. They didn’t need to show breast and nipples and tanned coeds to get their point across. I can certain appreciate dancing to feel alive, believe me on that one. I just think it’s a case of “sex sells”.
As for the game, it’s like the difference between GTA3 on the console and on the pc. On the console the controls are simpler and you have to hit a button to aim the crosshairs, otherwise you’re just aiming in the general direction your pointing, right? That’s I’m sure what this is like. But the PC version of GTA3 has a free moving mouse. Since I playing with a mouse AND a keyboard the two are thought of as seperate and I can aim seperately from moving. Not so in ETM. The mouse is used only to change the direction of my forward movement. I would be ok if they had included support for gamepads, that way I could play on my SideWinders just as if I was playing on a console. If it was designed for a console I would be fine with playing it that way. But there’s no gamepad support. None. That seems a little silly especially since it was designed AS a console game. You’d think they’d want it played like one even on the PC?
I agree with you about the third movie. I think I’ll appreciate it more in November, but I don’t think I should need another movie in order to appreciate it. It should stand on its own. I didn’t NEED Jedi to appreciate Empire Strikes Back. Yes, the two made a cohesive whole when combined with the first but each could be watched seperately for their own qualities.
I went into the movie expecting nearly the same exact things and I wasn’t “let down” just left empty. There was such a nice feeling of completion to the 1st one. They had won the day and the bad guys were finished (temporaraly) but that the war would go on and the struggle would continue but it would be ok. This one didn’t give me that. I think, if 2 and 3 really need to be seen together, that it would have made more sense to make a 4 hour epic than seperate 2 hour movies. That way you can appreciate all the things that 2 and 3 have at the same time. I know for certain I wouldn’t sit through 6 Lord of the Rings movies. There’d be no way.
I think Revolution will be a great finish to the first one… and that it should have encompased both Reloaded and Revolutions and directly followed up on the first one. The way they did it, until November, I’m going to feel that this movie was more or less pointless. It didn’t start anywhere and it certinaly didn’t end anything. I’m sure I’m going to change my mind in November but I’m still going to have to combine the two movies in my head to do so. Wouldn’t it have been nice for them to do that for me? I wouldn’t have minded a 4 hour action flick. 🙂
I noticed the overuse of “bullet time” as well. The instance that jumps out at me the most is when Trinity and the Keymaker are stealing the bike from the transport. Why go to bullet time when they jump off the transport? It didn’t seem to enhance anything, it was just there for no good reason.
As for traffic not stopping, I have a theory on that. They make a couple references to the downtown area being part of the “core network”. It could be that the freeway is just a representation in the Matrix of some machine datapath. It does seem to have some sort of special meaning to it, seeing as Morpheus is apparently scared of it.
If we want to get into physics problems, then there are plenty, like Morhpeus’s ability to stay on the top of the speeding truck while doing all sorts of fun aerobatic fighting. But I figure, “Hey, it’s in the Matrix.” It’s a handy catchall, I know, but it does give them some freedom in such things.
Speaking of freedom, I’m also of the opinion that Zion is part of the Matrix as well. After a couple iterations of the Matrix, it would be clear to the machine that people want to escape. Why not provide them with a realistic place to escape to, while still keeping them in the system. There’s a few places that evidence that, I think Smith makes some references about Neo not really being free, and the thing in the end where Neo zaps the squidlies.
Oh, and am I think only one who thinks it’s really obvious that the Architect is referring to Persephone when he mentions the mother of the Matrix?
Persephone is definitely the “mother”. The only other thing it could have been was the Oracle, but the architect dismisses that right away. doesn’t leave many more options, and I have to think that the whole Merovingian angle has some purpose. Again, it goes with the whole “lots of loose ends created in reloaded”. Either that, or they’re going to introduce that character later, but I think that we have seen all of the major characters for the trilogy. That, or we can’t trust a word that the architect says, and he is lying about everything from Neo’s purpose to the machines/ matrix getting good at destroying Zion, this being the 6th time and all.
“Speaking of freedom, I’m also of the opinion that Zion is part of the Matrix as well.”
That’s exactly what I thought as soon as he zapped the squids. I was like… “great, now we have the twist that they’ve really never been unplugged afterall.” Almost like that Red Dwarf book/episode. Good theory.
Either that or neo just has super powers in and out of the matrix in the first place but he merely needed to “focus”. video game pun intended. hehehe.