| |
|
Well, I thought to celebrate the release of Revolutions by finally being true to my word and getting this out on video, with nibbles and tea. And my God. My fellow viewer fell asleep, and in many ways I could only look on in envy.
The basic structure is shit. Overlong action sequence followed by overlong monologues, then back to overlong action sequence. At no point was there any sense of danger, threat, or even interest. The fights were, once you took away the fetishistic overuse of slow-mo and the preponderance of Hugo Weavings, pretty by-the-numbers kung fu battles, except without the skill to tell any real story. Punchy punchy punchy.
None of the characters actually *were*; this is more understandable in the minor characters, that is those who turned up purely to make one overlong speech and move the action along to the next set-piece (Merovingian, Architect), but when you manage to get through an entire film without suggesting any interiority to your central characters whatsoever, you probably need to hire a writer.
Many of the scenes in an overlong movie were pointless anyway - the scrap with Seraph ("you never truly know someone until you fight them" - I pity his mum), the Trinity/Keaneo parallel with Last-reel Link and Last-reel Link's lady, almost everything that happens in Zion (but most especially Neo's halfwitted conversation with Commander Adama - Jesus). The agents have, in the manner of sequels everywhere, become almost totally unthreatening (now *Morpheus* can outfight an agent? And hold his own against a tide of Smiths?) and Agent Smith, now there are lots of him, is about as menacing as an Imperial Stormtrooper. The shimmer twins were endearing, but not exactly scary mcscary - after an impressive two minutes or so we find that, like the agents, they are getting flattened like an ironing board.
Ultimately, the cool things about the Matrix were its aesthetics and its premise. The premise was looking tired by the end of *that* film, but the aesthetics were still nice. In this one, half the time we are stuck in the real world, a Logan's run via the Hemp Shop Abercrombie catalogue full of unbleached cotton and straight young couples, and the other in the increasingly corrupted and bankrupt conceit of the Matrix, harried unconvincingly by a grinning loon of a pantomime dame who used to be menacing and interesting ("Smith will suffice" - double Jesus).
If it weren't too late, I would start a campaign for the final film to be written and directed by Jade Goody. That way at least we might get some actual conflict and not this artlessly engineered arsecheese. |
|
|
