This will most certainly require a second viewing some time because I definitely think I like it but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what it was all about. There’s something Wag the Dog-ish about it, something massively Grosse Pointe Blank ish about it too, and not just due to the presence of two Cusacks and Dan Aykroyd. Let it be said that any movie starring John and Joan pretty much has me at hello anyway. Hilary Duff is surprisingly watchable here too, I didn’t even recognise her at first. It’s very weird, very varied, and at times very funny. Like I say I can’t wait to see it again.

When I saw 1408 last year, I’d already been a fan of John Cusack I’m guessing since Grosse Pointe Blank 10 years previously – but it was still like having a veil lifted from my eyes as I realised, he wasn’t just cool, he was one of best actors I’d ever seen. It was only shortly after that that I heard the buzz around his performance here and that was it, I was sure he’d finally get an Oscar nomination.

Well, I wasn’t let down. Cusack’s performance here is completely overwhelming, everything that isn’t spoken playing off his face more eloquently and painfully than any words could muster. Clint Eastwood’s score is quietly brilliant too. Both, as I thought months ago before even seeing or hearing either, should’ve featured in this year’s Oscar nominations.

Though I hadn’t realised it, I think the reason my reviews have suffered a little lately is because I really badly needed a tearjerker like this to clear the system. The two girls who play Cusack’s daughters are amazing too – we almost seem to see them growing up on the screen before our eyes, so much do we come to know them and so well is it conveyed to us how important the days covered will be in their lives to come. They even get their ears pierced together midway. The ultimate effect of this is that when the moment comes that the movie is all about – dad finally finding the right time and the right words to tell his girls what has happened – even though we’re in possession of the facts from the start – it’s like finally we’re really being told too, and we take it just the same as the girls. It’s a beautiful, beautiful movie, and at 85 minutes it really proves they needn’t come much longer.

I can’t not give this movie less than 5 hearts anymore – perhaps particularly since I changed my ratings from stars to hearts lol. Even the corny jokes (not to mention gag Bono) worked more on me third time around here and the good here is so good you just can’t help but surrender. It owes a terrific debt to one of my all-time faves, Pink Floyd: The Wall, not just in “Strawberry Fields” as mentioned below but also the whole “I Want You” scene is pretty much “Another Brick in the Wall”; and though Julie Taymor can’t (yet) hope to entirely compete with Alan Parker, it’s certainly a worthy comparison.

It’s all about the freedom the movie has – leaping from a Bono cameo to Eddie Izzard pretty much sums it up (incidentally, as I commented while watching it this time with my sister, it’s not so much the mere appearance and singing from Bono that wows here; it’s when he speaks following the song when you truly realise how it’s perhaps the most selfless thing he’s ever done); from a gorgeously scored climax intercutting Vietnam and Colombia University to the completely random but equally beautiful women in the sea over the eponymous song sequence. It’s a movie that’s undeniably “all over the place” and yet you can’t quite fathom how it could be any other way. I’ve watched it more now than any other film of the past year, and that stat will only increase as time goes on, so the watchability factor definitely comes into play in the rating too. And if I haven’t said enough about how incredible Evan Rachel Wood is, then mark my words I’ll have plenty more to add in the future, she blows my mind, nevermind every movie or scene I see her in, every frame.

January 10th, 2008:

I really need to start half stars here, I think, lol. That I couldn’t resist watching this again so soon should speak well of the movie in itself. When it’s good, like in “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “Strawberry Fields” as mentioned below, or the exploding newspaper over the instrumental climax to “Day in the Life” – not to mention just about every second Evan Rachel Wood occupies the screen – it’s great. When it’s bad, though – and I’d be amazed if even the most ardent of fans don’t feel this during at least some portion of the movie, though I’d personally cut half an hour or more – it’s even worse than I thought on the first viewing. I still really don’t know what to make of the rollercoaster of love and hate this movie takes me on. I’m often tempted to use the phrase “flawed masterpiece” but more often than not I ultimately fall down on one side or the other … but here … I really don’t think that phrase has ever applied more to a movie. I think I’ll be coming back to this many more times.

7th January, 2008:

Ah Julie Taymor First, this movie tackles the whole High School Musical thing into the dirt in just one 2-3 minute scene (“I Wanna Hold Your Hand”). There follow a plethora of standalone interpretations of Beatles songs set loosely to a little love story (rather than the other way around as some plot summaries will tell you :P) but I’m not sure it ever comes together in quite the way it should and for a Julie Taymor movie, no matter what anyone tells you, it’s really not that startlingly visual. Okay, no, it comes close to Pink Floyd’s The Wall during “Strawberry Fields” but that’s all I’ll give it; let’s face it, for the title track alone she had the Rufus Wainwright/Dakota Fanning and Fiona Apple/Paul Thomas Anderson music videos to contend with.

It’s just so about the Beatles songs; even the ones that aren’t sung come in in lines like, “She came in through the bathroom window!” and “when I’m sixty-four …” ... by the time a character called Dr. Robert walks in, you’ve practically cringed yourself inside out so it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m quite the pushover sometimes, so by the time it came to the two girls singing “love, love, love” to a couple of police officers on a rooftop as the hero (Jude) sings out for his Lucy (yeh), I can’t deny I was emotionally armless and I for one will be returning to this again one day, just to see if I was just another sucker or if there’s actually something here.

Watch if you can’t get enough of Beatles covers, pretty people and good lipsync; but don’t expect a whole lot more. For the visuals, I’d personally sooner watch Julie Taymor’s Titus again; for the music, I’ll keep praying Cirque du Soleil will tour their “Love” show or at least produce a DVD, in the meantime I recommend I Am Sam. Though it has its moments, this movie is in places so cheesy and simplistic in the worst way. I think it could’ve been much much more.

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 was really impressed by Rocky Balboa ... and I guess it was a little dumb of me to expect Sylvester Stallone to do the same here as he did there; part because, in a sense, I guess he has done the same as he did there, only, not in the way I expected. Rather than instill the franchise with something more than the basic high concept formulaic nonsense as he did with “Balboa”, he’s really made here the definitive Rambo movie, just as he made the definitive Rocky movie in “Balboa”. I think the best review of this I’ve read recently said something along the lines of, it would probably feel more at home and play better on a crappy VCR, pan-and-scan and tracking problems included lol. He’s been that faithful to the general feel of the series.

Which is a shame – I figured especially with the titling of the installment, he was going for the same thing as Rocky Balboa ... reclaiming the franchise and showing ‘em how it’s done after being disappointed for years with how the sequels to his greatest successes were being treated. The last half hour of violence here goes some way towards making it worth watching … but it’s really mostly a letdown all the way. He had a gift here in that the title hadn’t even yet been used in the series (“First Blood” having been the title of part one) ... boy does he squander it.