Totalbiscuit Reviews

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Ouch...

[4/10 · 10 December 2003]

Oh dear Oh dear.. I really didn't like this film at all. To be quite honest I think Revolutions is like a boulder chained to the feet of the previous two films before they're thrown over the bridge into the river... I honestly wish Revolutions had never been made, it marred the experience of the first two so much..

Anyway.. why do I feel like this? Am I just band-wagon jumping here? Well here's my reasoning..

The first film is generally expected to be a masterwork of cinema. A modern classic if you will. It was a damn good movie. It had style, it had flare, it had action, it had plot and it had enough little hidden subtexts to make you want to see it till your tv screen burned out. The second one got slated but in my opinion it was exactly what people should have expected, the first film, only blown up onto a big scale. Whereas the first film focussed upon a select group of people, the second pulled back to show us the full scale of the conflict. It had complex (some would say pretentious?) sub-plots and again, it was fun to watch.

So Revolutions. Ack ack ack... My first gripe is that it's barely Matrix. There's hardly any of the Matrix in it, and what we do see consists of *POSSIBLE SPOILER* about 20 minutes in a bleak train station and an underwhelming and often ridiculous duel between Neo and Agent Smith with a predictable conclusion *END OF SPOILER*. The rest of the film is spent either watching hovercraft buzz around the place (admittedly the chase through the mechanical line is quite impressive) or daft looking mechanical combat suits shooting at a seemingly endless swarm of sentinels while their pilots constantly shout battle cries before being torn to bits one by one. How nice... this smells way too much like generic C-grade Sci-Fi to me, not the Grade A material that the original film and Reloaded have lead us to expect. It also seemed to have a ridiculous amount of plot holes. Who the hell was Seraph, what happened when Seraph and the girl get confronted by the Smiths? What was the effect of Smith absorbing the Oracle? And over-all... WHY THE HELL did you give us such an underwhelming ending? I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, although to be honest I'd recommend not seeing it at all since it will mar your experience of the other two films. I genuinely wish I hadn't seen it now, I'd have rather drawn my own conclusions. A disappointing end to a previously fantastic trilogy. What a crying shame..

4/10

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Misunderstood, Overcriticized and not the mindless action movie many wanted..

[21 November 2003]

Well I think everyone saw this coming. That is.. the wave of criticism and the fierce arguments which have followed. You create a film as revolutionary as The Matrix and then decide to make it a trilogy.. it's inevitable that people will then say 'It's nothing compared to the first one!' and make various other arguments against the following films. It's happened before.. it'll no doubt happen again in the future. But let's look past this blindness for a moment and actually take a look at the film. Not much point explaining the plot, others have done that in great deal, I'd just like to make a few comparisons.. and then take the movie as a whole.

1) Matrix vs Reloaded - Action

The Matrix had some of the most stunning action scenes we've seen to date in any movie.. but what people seem to have missed is the fact that Reloaded does too. Neo vs Agent Smith was an excellent scene in the first film.. Neo vs 50 Agent Smiths is just something else... You won't find this sort of thing in any other film.. certainly not that I know of. Reloaded does a great job of taking the kung-fu fight scenes of the first film to a whole new level. Bullet time is fortunately not over-used and tactically placed to give that 'Woah.....' feel whenever it does rear it's little head. Reloaded also sees Neo doing away with firearms and using a variety of different close combat weapons, which is great to see, since The Matrix films does this with such style and finesse. I'd argue that every combat scene just has that extra bit of gloss and polish over the original film and it's all done on a bigger scale. People need to realise that where the first film was focussed on the fortunes of a few.. Reloaded gives a much grander perspective to the conflict and is perhaps, a little more difficult to follow as a result.

2) Matrix vs Reloaded - Plot

Reloaded is simply a deeper film in plot terms.. hands down. There really is absolutely no argument against this. The Matrix's plot was not quite as original as many make out it out to be. It was just another cyber-punk style sci-fi thriller with machines taking over the world and enslaving man-kind. Reloaded expands on this and adds a whole new philosophical (some would argue pretentious) level to the series. It introduces the idea of programs with unique personalities and agendas.. an overall Architect of the Matrix (who I must say acts the part incredibly well) and drops a few bombshells along the way. It requires a bit of thought.. and you really need to watch it a few times to truly appreciate it's virtues.

Does that make it better than The Matrix? No.. probably not. The Matrix was a whole different animal.. something we had never seen before. You can't really improve on that, or the feeling you get from watching it. I think the writers realized this and instead of trying to beat it... changed it's nature instead. Many people didn't like that change.. understandable to a certain degree. But I urge you to see this film with an open mind. In my opinion it's far superior to the third film but doesn't quite capture the essense of the first. That doesn't make it bad... it makes it different.

Overall Rating : 8/10

Dog Soldiers (2002)

It's a black comedy, take it as such and enjoy

[15 August 2003]

Right.. let's get one thing straight. This is not 'the classic' werewolf movie. It is not a 'revolution' in horror flicks. It's just a damn good horror movie, in the same was that Dawn of the Dead was a damn good horror movie. I'm not going to bother explaining the plot, it's been done before, I'll tell you what I think about the movie. It's a good old fashioned slasher horror. To say that's it's Dawn of the Dead with werewolves is probably a bad but effective analogy. Black comedys are a difficult thing to get right. It's an art to get someone laughing while people are being ripped to pieces left right and centre.. Dawn of the Dead was funny... and if you've got the right sort of twisted sense of humour, Dog Soldiers is funny too. Damn I'm writing this review at 5:30am after watching the film.. so don't expect some critical genius. I have to reiterate this basic fact.. THIS FILM IS FUN TO WATCH. This is all that really matters in this sort of genre. Do you want an all-out action movie that puts the grey-matter through a ringer? Not really, you'd like to see someone elses grey matter splatter all over the nearest wall as some evil looking creature bears down with nasty big pointy teeth.

Various gripes that people have had with the film including predictable-ish storyline and b-movie-esk themes can be easily dismissed. What were you expected.. shakespeare? You've got a bunch of army guys in the woods with enough bad language to put a bus full of gangster rappers to shame. They have guns.. there are nasty effectively invincible werewolves that are rather keen on making a meal out of our plucky heroes. That's it... that's the basic plot. Ignore the plot, it's not relevant in an action thriller like this. And it is thrilling and there are times when you wonder 'how the hell are they going to get out of this?'. The casting is excellent, the characters are far more realistic than the plaster-casting of modern hollywood. You can relate to the characters, which is great since they're about to be torn to bits.

You don't get to see the werewolves on screen for more than a second or two. I think this works. Maybe it's a method of disguising the bad wolf costumes but as a horror film pivot it works. For the first half of the film you don't get to see them at all, which is even better. The unseen enemy makes the imagination run wild.

I dunno what more to say about this movie... If you like stuff like the Evil Dead then you'll probably like this. It is in the classic horror b-movie style, and it works. Just don't expend a brain-bending hollywood epic, because it isn't.

8/10