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science fiction

The Matrix Revolutions * Andy + Larry Wachowski * 2003

I must have have paid no attention since I don’t remember that this film played in the cinemas. It must have been Christmas last year or so or was it before another Lord Of The Ring? Anyway, I saw the last part of the Matrix trilogy on rental DVD. What I remember from part 2 was that it was too much action and too little conversation. This problem is mostly solved in the last part. Of course there is still of a lot of action and the special effects are again more impressive, etc, etc., but the Wachowski brothers made time for nihilist philosophy and quite a bit of humour. What you often hear is that this last part clears up a lot of things, and hat the end is quite surprising. Hmmmm. Of course you can imagine that there is a final battle with the machines. Since The Matrix is an American film, the people win. Also you can imagine that there is a final battle between Neo and the Smiths and a lot of time is spent on this fight. Some more things are to be expected. A line that was detectible in part 2 is continued here, which is the line of unlogical parts in the story. In order to put things to an end and to make things more impressive, grave concessions have been made to the original philosophy behind the trilogy. Just to name a few things: what is possible inside and outside the matrix, the power of the writers of the programs and even an extra world had to be created.
No matters though, The Matrix Revolutions was -to me- more enjoyable than part 2. It is entertaining, some nice ideas are posed, some questions are answered, many are asked and all in all I definately need to see Revolutions again to make a clearer picture of it. I think I will wait for a trilogy DVD box or so, so I can see them all together.

So, if you liked part 2, you will love part 3 and if you liked part 1 for the philosophy, you can also savely watch the final part. (4)

The Matrix Reloaded * Andy + Larry Wachowski * 2003

This is without a doubt the most spectacular actionfilm that I ever saw. The question is if that is what we are waiting for for The Matrix 2. I am no fond of actionfilms and in The Matrix 1 I even skip the scene in which Neo and Trinity violently enter the building in which Morpheus is captured. Oh well, I didn’t see 1 in the cinema and special effects on a large screen are usually better.

So, for the few who haven’t seen it, should you go and see “The Matrix Reloaded”? There is seriously less philosophy in this one and far too much action and special effects. All very impressive of course, but all the fighting, etc. is strenghed out beyond belief. Nice scenes tend to get boring after five minutes (or more!). The story is a bit further developed. Neo and Trinity are lovers, you get to see Zion, the city under the ground, Morpheus seems to have a boss who also has bosses, agent Smith is no longer a normal agent. Also a few new characters, some nice, some superfluous. Towards the end the story itself (the matrix, the real world, dreams and then all through eachother) becomes ununderstandable. I probably will see it again when it is available on video. So, should you go and see it? If you ask me, if you like 1 for the background/philosophy, better wait until you get a cheaper chance than the cinema, if you like actionfilms with state-of-the-art special effects which are indeed 10x better than all Matrix-clones together, when you are not afraid of some martial arts and serious shooting scenes, maybe this is one that you want to see on the big screen.
(PS, for The Matrix 1 go to the articles section)

Jin-Rô * Hiroyuki Okiura * 1998

Animation has never been really my cup of tea, yet I do like the “Animatrix”. This film was on MTV a while ago and I decided to record it. “The Wolf Brigade” is an animation with quite life-like images and it plays in an apocalyptic future where the Brigade is a para-police-unit to avoid terrorists from disturbing society. The masses are not too happy with the reign, so anti-governental groups flourish. When one member of the Wolf Brigade sees a teenager girl blowing herself up in front of him, he has second thoughts about his occupation. Then he runs into an almost identical girl.
“Jin-Rô” has a nice, quite typically Japanese, dark atmosphere and a story critical to our nowadays society. The images are quite realistic and the makers sure had an eye for detail. All this makes “Jin-Rô” almost like watching a ‘normal’ film. I enjoyed it, maybe I should see some more “anime” to get to know the genre better.

Event Horizon * Paul W.S. Anderson * 1997

How many times a friend of mine told me to watch this film with me replying “well, it is scifi, and I don’t like that”, so after asking if I have seen it a few dozens of times, he put a tape in my hands… Ah well then.
So, “Event Horizon” proved to be everything I feared: a Holywood scifi. Based on a thin story about worm-holes (as if creating these will be experimental in 2045, they have been working out theories about that for years) and the things that the spaceship picked up from ‘another place’ (“fear” of course), the people of the “Event Horizon” didn’t live to tell about their experiences and when the maker and a few other go visit the ship after it returned our very universe, things turn a bit in the way of a horror which is not too well done (very cheap computer animations), credible or enjoyable.
Better filmtips in this section for sure!

Equilibrium * Kurt Wimmer * 2002

“Forget ‘The Matrix’! This movie will blow you away!” Quite a tagline, especially when you don’t live up to it. “Equilibrium” has only a few things incommon with “The Matrix”, but its level of quality is at best half that of the sublime “The Matrix”. The idea of “Equilibrium” is nice. In a future world, emotions are rooted out, because they are the source of war and other problems. This idea immediately raises a few problems, that are by far not solved in the film. Why a leader make his people enthousiastic about his ideas when they are not allowed to be happy or glad? How can the leader and inventor of such a system get angry and hold a grudge? Drugs are prescribed and “sense-offenders” (what a horrible term!) are hunted down by a special police force. It is the “cleric” John Preston (Christian Bale) that we follow in this film. Of course he becomes opposital to the system and tries to destroy it. So where is “The Matrix”? Maybe in the few way too fancy fighting scenes and the camera work? Oh well, “Equilibrium” is a scifi action film like you can see many these days, a weak Matrix spinnoff.

Beowulf * Graham Baker * 1999

As the title suggests this film is based on the epic poem “Beowulf”. If I am correct this is the oldest known text in the English language. It is said to be from the 6th century. So, in the 6th century they already wrote sci-fi?! I don’t know “Beowulf” myself (but I know the personage with the same name from “Tristan and Isolde”, a German saga), but I suppose this is a very loose interpretation or everything that isn’t described in the text is filled in by the makers of the film. The film “Beowulf” became one of these sci-fi’s playing in an imaginative past (?), like “Mad Max” or “Highlander”. Christopher Lambert is the mysterious stranger Beowulf who travels to a castle to fight the beast Grendel who kills all the inhabitents. The superhuman Beowulf falls in love with wonderbra Kyra and of course kills the supernatural beast and all ends happily. Alright.

The Animatrix * various * 2003

I have had this DVD in my hands several times and I was not the only one doubting whether or not to see this film. I can tell you: I don’t regret I did!

Already a nice surprise was that before I started to watch the films, I quickly jumped through the extras menu and heard that it were the brothers Wachowski themselves who had these films made. No cheap spinoff without consulting the creators of The Matrix trilogy. The brothers Wachowski wanted an animated version of their stories and asked nine prominent Japanese “anime” artists to make a short film. The brothers wrote the stories and came with suggestions, but still left the artists very free to fill in the rest. The result is nine animation films of about 10 minutes each, in different styles and treating different aspects of the world of The Matrix. The first film is an extraordinary realistic part much like the first film. The rest is quite typical Japanese “anime” with a lot of Buddhistic and “Matrixal” symbology. You will get the story of the time before the first film and different aspects of the concept of The Matrix. The extra information is very nice. Also you will get insight into the “Enter The Matrix” computer game, but that is not really my cup of tea.

So, if you like The Matrix, just have a look at this. The atmosphere of the animations is very close to that of the first film and they are done by the best artists and this definately shows. Also if you (like me) normally do not watch “anime”, this “Animatrix” is still a pleasure to watch.