This is one of those odd movies for me to review, in that I feel like I really should have a review of it here after all this time, and yet I also feel like I’m kind of spent in my enthusiasm for it with the distance. I hated it when I first saw it on the big screen in 1997; but then, I hated a lot of things that year. I do know that every viewing since that, at least until this one, it got better everytime. This time I really started to wonder if it was really all about the beautiful orange-haired Milla Jovovich.

Every time I watch my favourite Luc Besson movie, Leon, I cringe even more at the boyish nature of the violence especially at the opening – like it really might as well be a bunch of 10 year olds running around going, “pitchoo!” at each other – and that stuff’s even more abundant in this movie. At the same time, however, it’s a lot more palatable due to the genre, especially once you start taking it as tongue-in-cheek comic-bookery. Oddly, the things that I despised most walking out of the multiplex in 1997 – Chris Tucker, Lee Evans etc – are the things I got the biggest kick out of (second of course to Milla) this less-than-ecstatic viewing. I’d forgotten about the Lee Evans appearance entirely, in fact.

So, is it really anything more than the half-naked orange-haired beauty of Milla? I guess first I want to say, even just considering Milla: she’s a lot more than that in this movie. I find her performance even more marvelous each time I see it and it’s a reason in itself to watch the movie even over the brief nudity and general heartstopping beauty of the girl. It nearly bears comparison to Jodie Foster’s Nell for me. The scene where she learns about war makes the movie for me, combining the best of her performance with just exactly the thing about the movie that does raise it above mere eye-candy. What it comes down to in the end, that conflict in Leeloo, “What’s the use of saving lives … when you see what you do with them?” – it’s simple but beautiful and it gets me everytime, even if it’s a long and clunky time coming. At least there’s Milla to get you through the dodgy parts.

I have some catching up to do so the next reviews might seem rushed, sorry bout that … I’m just gonna tidy up what I’ve already written and post.

Score 3 for the “movies I almost saw on my birthday this year but didn’t, thank god!” field lol. And this is the one that I really thought couldn’t fail for me. A movie like this should have my eyes unable to look away at all times, and frankly, this one didn’t achieve that at all. It rarely rises above its basic concept – War of the Worlds meets Blair Witch (or “there’s a visual effect loose in Manhattan and all I have is this lousy handycam!”). The only moderate surprise was Lizzy Caplan (Janis Ian from Mean Girls), who at first I thought was Zooey Deschanel’s sister. I was expecting a movie where if we saw the monster at all it would only be at the end; I think (ed.: hmm, I don’t know what I think, I left that sentence unfinished when I left off writing a week ago and I don’t know how it was gonna end LOL).

Its technical qualities lift it above most of what’s been released so far this year, though of course that isn’t saying much. The “wiping the tape” subplot is kind of as cute as it is hokey and leads to an ending that can’t fail to tug at the heartstrings. The whole message of the movie is clearly appreciate what you’ve got because it could all be gone tomorrow but I can’t help but think it could’ve been delivered better – dare I say it even, without the whole video gimmick that makes it remotely unique. I’d be amazed and depressed by the audience member who relates or so much as gives a damn about the characters here; and even if you were to start out with the blindest faith in them, the writer breaks the fourth wall horribly with misplaced humour like the Superman/Garfield dialogue, it’s just beyond hideously done. Even the second port of call, the visuals, isn’t really a department you can get too excited in – the monster itself is quite embarassingly reminiscent of the devil thing that appeared in the Season One finale of Torchwood. It’s probably cool to watch with a frenzied audience … but you know my feelings on that way of judging a movie’s true quality.

I remember being surprised by this the last time I watched it (alas, another review seems to have vanished), and my heart leapt as it hit its stride this time around when I remembered Jim Hawkins is voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt I guess I wasn’t such a fan of his the last time I watched. He along with Emma Thompson, David Hyde Pierce, Laurie Metcalf and Martin Short among others make for a great voice cast for a movie populated by more speaking characters, I noticed this time around, than you can shake a stick at.

It’s the “hand-drawn” (mostly) Disney animation feature I forget about most often, and that’s a shame, because considering how late in the game it came for them, it’s actually probably among my favourites. Going back to Gordon-Levitt, it’s right they should have someone so cool voicing this hero – I think I’ve said a number of times how badly the Disney males have sucked (and not just in my general, admittedly sucky, “most males do anyway,” way, lol) ... but second only perhaps to Tarzan, Jim Hawkins is really startlingly endearing. I love when the one song moment here comes seemingly out of nowhere triggering a flashback to Jim’s father leaving, and you just get all of his hangups thrown at you like a slap to the face, so when you see him slump against John Silver’s chest and start crying, you’re just completely with him.

To counter all of this is the feisty back and forth humour between Thompson’s sexy feline captain and Hyde Pierce as, well, as always something approximating Niles from Frasier never fails, lol. There’s the cute Morph, Michael Wincott’s spider thing, Martin Short’s B.E.N., and some gorgeous visuals. It’s a surprisingly ambitious project, one that really in the midst of Home on the Range, Brother Bear, etc, makes me once again wish they’d kept on with the handdrawn* – I noticed looking at the big list of the Animated Classics that it came out the same year as Lilo & Stitch, which clearly overshadows it … perhaps that’s why it’s so forgettable. Like I said, it’s a shame, ‘cos it’s one that makes me smile and laugh and cry everytime I see it.

* I wrote most of this review a couple of days ago now – since then I’ve been reading all kinds of amazing things about what Glen Keane is doing with Rapunzel ... there may be hope … it’s not hand drawn, but damn, finally somebody realises what computers can do …

I won’t deny, this movie is practically batsh*t crazy, but it’s certainly not the mess I’d been led to expect (Mark Kermode said it was practically unreleasable). It’s actually pretty damn compelling with a phenomenal central performance by Tim Roth, a beautiful score, and highly memorable images, most notably the final one that took my breath away like few things do and made me almost immediately want to watch it over again.

It should really be 30 minutes shorter, and I’d recommend the slightly similar The Fountain (which, incidentally, is 30 minutes shorter) more … but this is far from the failure some have painted it as. I hope Coppola isn’t put off by the criticism, ‘cos this movie if nothing else shows him trying harder to use the medium for all its worth than most film makers dare.

Another case of me going “WTF?” over my old review. Best in trilogy indeed I don’t know what I was thinking – though I fully remember watching it that time and finding something about it I really loved, I have no idea what it was, and this time around was just exactly the same as the first time … just a huge, pointless, rambling disappointment.

I’ll give it the showdown between Neo and Smith – that’s what we’re here for. And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, again I slightly underappreciated the visuals of this finale in the past. But really even here the movie lets itself down entirely, when Smith delivers a 100% convincing monologue about “the vagaries of perception” that Neo’s pathetic, “Because … I choose to!” can do nothing to defeat. It’s just a shambles really, I don’t even wanna try saying any more about it. It’s a beautiful, slick shambles with a great fight at the end … but it’s still a shambles.

April 15th, 2004:

Now dare I say it… I think this is the best in the trilogy. I know, I’m as shocked as anyone. My advice to anyone who saw this in the cinema and came out practically even hating the first because it was so bad, is watch it again… really, truly, watch it again.

All of the Matrix movies have major flaws… they’re not Citizen Kane, The English Patient, Fight Club – how much you let those flaws ruin the experience though, is up to you, because there’s undeniably as many great moments as flaws. My thoughts on this trilogy lead me so far to one difficult conclusion, that they’re really not cinema – they’re art, but they’re something beyond cinema, because the audiences’ reactions to the movies, especially the sequels, is as telling as the concepts in the movies themselves.

It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m convinced that one day, if I grow to love one movie in the Matrix Trilogy, Revolutions will be that movie. But again, I have to say… the jury’s still out. But Smith’s final speech gives me chills more than anything in the series.

First off, I’m crazy for what I wrote in both those reviews below. I have seen this movie surely 5 or more times now and, again as with the original, it was only this time around that I finally realised just how brilliant the effects sequences – not just the big lorry crash climax – are here. It’s not as together as the first movie, that’s for sure, and it does end with that hideous cliffhanger that still makes me laugh my ass off … also, kinda like what I noticed about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when watching it with non-readers, I noticed here how you really need to have seen the Animatrix shorts between the original and this because there are at least a couple of “huh?” moments if you haven’t. It is still a hell of a lot of fun though, all the way, and especially having watched Revolutions again just now and realised how bad it is, as a sequel to a movie that really didn’t need ‘em, they don’t come much better than this.

April 14th, 2004:

My initial reaction to this installment of the Matrix Trilogy was a little spoiled, a basic, “Whatever,” aside from the lorry crash which continues to meet my highest expectations like no other moment in the whole trilogy.

One of the series’ biggest flaws struck me on this viewing of Reloaded – Don Davis’ score. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great music, but I find that it’s a little like Joel Silver’s hype interviews that filled movie news shows all around the movies’ release dates – it overplays every single moment, making it sound like something is happening that’s infinitely, even impossibly, grander than what is actually happening on screen. It’s impossible to put this into words on the page, I’d have to play you clips of the score or something… but I’m sure it’s a definite problem.

The Burly Brawl is the biggest let down in the trilogy – call me spoiled, tell me that ridiculous defence “It’s all in a computer anyway, it’s not meant to look real!” (seriously I read this a few times…), but the virtual actors just don’t cut it yet, I don’t care how much they spent developing the technology. The funny thing is, there are places where they do work, in fast motion, etc, you can tweak them to make them work; but like idiots, they just had to go too far, put virtual actors into slow motion bullet time, so there’s no escaping scrutiny, and they fall apart before your eyes.

After watching the whole trilogy in order once more, I’ve changed my mind a lot about Revolutions and realise that this installment, Reloaded is the real letdown. Having said that, it’s the biggest ride and I could still watch it perhaps more readily than the other two. Like I said in my review of The Matrix, the jury is out on what the Matrix Trilogy means to me… but they’re endlessly intriguing.

Old review found! Courtesy of Archive.org – May 23rd, 2003:

I just wanted to write a few words on this movie, ‘cos despite my (current) slightly undecided feeling about it, it still blew me away. Why am I undecided on the matter? Why because, that is my purpose… just kidding :-p The third movie Revolutions is gonna be absolutely crucial to anyone’s final judgement on Reloaded and the whole series (though it has to be said, whatever the outcome, the first movie will always be a standalone masterpiece).

This may or may not be spoiler laden, I don’t know, I don’t care, there, I mentioned it. The movie ends, perhaps unsurprisingly, with the title, “To be concluded…” But that’s not all. It ends with a lingering shot of the ‘evilly-bearded guy’ and a hysterically funny music stab (I kid not, we’re talking of the dun-dun-DUHHHHHH brand of musical cue found only in parodies). I sincerely hope there was some tongue-in-cheek here and I don’t mean Trinity’s tongue or Neo’s cheek, ‘cos personally, I almost had to laugh out loud at the cheesiness of this moment.

Secondly, the BIG effect (you’ll know it when you see it) that ends the much-touted car chase is the ONLY thing in Reloaded that reaches the jaw-dropping peaks that the first movie was filled with. Revolutions simply MUST have more scenes of this calibre to make the series worthwhile. But boy, when it hits that peak, it goes beyond, any movie for the next 5 years will be pushed to match this effects shot.

A lot of people don’t like the Wachowski’s dialogue… I say they’re missing the point, I don’t know how to elaborate on that. They did the same in Bound, and I personally love the coldness of it.

This is all surface-matter. I think the true value of this installment in particular will be revealed in further more scrutinising viewings. There’s effects here that are hidden, like the matrix itself is described by the Oracle, when it goes right, people don’t notice, but when it goes wrong, you hear about it a lot. There’s a lot wrong here. But there’s LOTS to like, so pay attention. I’d recommend the Animatrix for anyone wanting that little bit extra depth (“Beyond” in particular… I want to write about that at another time, simply the most beautiful animation I’ve ever seen… the light… but I’ll write about it another time).

Like the ad says… Free your mind. You might like it.

Well, in answer to the question posed below, yes, it’s the original and best. I’m sure I must’ve reviewed this since 2004, but it must’ve gone missing so I apologise if I repeat myself (and if this sounds rushed, then it’s because the original version of this got lost in a disconnect fiasco).

I was pleased looking at the IMDb page for the movie to find that it won a fistful of technical Oscars in 2000 – which is even cooler when you remember that the movie actually came out pretty early in ‘99. It came practically out of nowhere, was never really talked about as so many mega-budget event movies are, and yet, almost 10 years on (which means I’ll be watching it again next year for sure – scary though!) it still blows my mind, if anything, more with every viewing. I don’t think I’d ever appreciated the complexity of the whole rooftop helicopter sequence as much as I did this time around.

And what this installment of the trilogy has over the sequels is something that kind of makes me loathe to even call it a trilogy anymore, and that’s its self-contained quality. As you’ll read elsewhere, I have a soft spot for the sequels, but the fact will always remain that they were fairly unnecessary in comparison to this. Compared to the other two installments, particularly Revolutions, this one feels much more written and considered, there’s humour, setpieces and ideas wall-to-wall and it literally never goes flat. And say what you will about Keanu Reeves … can you really imagine anyone else in the part?

April 14th, 2004:

The original and best? Or the best because it’s original? I think I’ve seen this one too many times compared to the sequels so it’s still impossible for me to judge. All I can say for sure is, it’s a completely different movie for where the triology ended up.

I remember when I saw it first, I saw it because I was a huge fan of the Wachowski’s Bound and wanted to see more clever camerawork like the gun/arm mounted camera moment and more great images like Joe Pantoliano’s blood spraying into white paint in slo-mo. The Matrix delivered, but not quite enough, and it never seemed anywhere near to me as good as Bound.

It is unique and self-contained and for many will continue to be the best by far in the whole Matrix Trilogy. For me, the jury’s definitely still out as I rewatch and rewatch the whole thing over and over, because I find it all increasingly intriguing – not just the movies themselves, but everyone’s reactions to where it went.

I honestly wanted to start this review by basically saying, WTF did you expect? I kinda-sorta-liked the first AVP movie. And this one begins, if anything, better than that one did; throughout, it’s certainly slicker and better in the visual effects department. But between the earth teens storyline and the, “See? No Monster!” scene, just … oh my God. I appreciate that this movie is aimed solely at fanboys but come on, cinema is a broad enough medium that you can be so superficial and at least partially fulfilling in other ways; the first movie showed that in its ending. It’s been a long time since I saw it, but I swear, even Predator 2 was better than this under the gore and visuals.

Yes, still, if you’re complaining – and I am – “what did you expect?” is certainly a valid response … but jeez, it scares me to think anyone over the age of 13 is paying for this crap.