...a futuristic film noir with big names, big sets, big budget, and enough weirdness to ensure HD-DVD sales for years to come.
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The first "Matrix" movie was one of the biggest-selling DVDs of all time and helped move the fledgling DVD industry into the big time. Warner Bros. are hoping, I'm sure, that the box sets of all three "Matrix" movies on HD-DVD will do the same for high definition. Yes, at the moment, WB are making the films available only on HD-DVD because of present limitations in the Blu-ray format for their "In-Movie Experience," but Sony should have the bugs worked out soon, and Blu-ray afficionados ought to get their sets toward the end of 2007. And, yes, while the five-disc set, "The Ultimate Matrix 'Collection," under consideration here contains everything the "Matrix" fan could ever want, WB have also made available a three-disc HD-DVD set containing just the movies and relatively fewer extras.
The Matrix
Ever since "Jaws" set the trend, summer movies have been about action and adventure. When you can throw in fantasy and special effects, all the better. "The Matrix" comes in with all speakers firing, a sci-fi thriller that's short on logic but long on visual and visceral excitement. It's a futuristic film noir with big names like Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne, big sets, big budget, and enough weirdness to ensure HD-DVD sales for years to come.
The premise is promising: We all live in a dream. Literally. Nothing around us is real. In the movie's future world, most people on Earth are curled up in little pods, millions upon millions of tiny pods all over the world, with each pod's inhabitant fed and nurtured by giant, insect-like machines. Our lives are merely sensory implants, cyber visions to keep us pacified, while the machines feed on our energy. It's a tempting idea, one that will have you looking at your own world in a slightly different way, but it's undermined by too much mundane explanation. According to the story line, we got ourselves into this situation when we built computers that became smarter than we were. They took over and enslaved us. Yes, it's yet another "smart-ass machines taking over the planet" plot. How about, we were colonized millions of years ago by higher intelligences, and this is how they left us? How about, this is the way it's always been since time immemorial, sans God, gods, or any higher intelligences? How about the whole world is in the mind of the main character, and nothing else exists? Oh, where is John Conner when you need him? Where is Big Arnold?
Anyway, a few humans have escaped this illusory world, this "Matrix," and are working in a resistance movement headed by a character played by Fishburne. He has the unlikely but mysterious-sounding name of Morpheus (in mythology Morpheus was the god of dreams, and so the symbolism begins). Their latest recruit is a young computer worker named Thomas Anderson, played by Reeves. He is supposedly destined to be the world's savior, "the One." But first he has to be convinced that the Matrix business is all true, then he has to be sprung from his pod and brought into reality, and finally he has to be trained to use his new super powers. Oh, I didn't mention the super powers this savior possesses? It's not an easy job for Anderson, or his alter-ego Neo, or the viewer to keep up with all this.
The movie's most obvious similarities are to "Blade Runner" for its dim, shadowy look; to "The Terminator" for its intellectual nucleus; and to "Dark City" for its overall feel. Unfortunately, it lacks the internal consistency of any of those films. Once "The Matrix" establishes its broad outlines, it turns almost exclusively to computer graphics, special effects, chases, and fights for its plot turns. The cold, dark, metallic look of the sets and costumes, so reminiscent of every other postapocalyptic movie ever made (at least since "Mad Max"), becomes tiresome; as does the routine, often wooden acting of its stars, especially the cornball posturing from Fishburne and Reeves. It's also hard to take the villains seriously when they speak in such deliberate, melodramatic voices and wear getups straight out of "Men in Black"; or to take Anderson seriously when he is "bugged" with an insect-looking implant. These are times when it strikes the viewer that the story may be intended as a parody of futuristic thrillers, but then the plot reverts back to its more serious tone and rebuts the notion.
Of course, the film does succeed in representing a bleak, gloomy future devoid of human emotion, and, undeniably, there are parts of it that are visually exciting, especially during its several climactic showdowns. The special effects can at times be breathtaking, as with the look of the giant squid-like mechanisms that constantly patrol the world. But a little of this goes a long way, and the plot too often bogs down in obscure complications that are hard to follow. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers, Andy and Larry, and costars Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano, among others.
So, back to the question: Is life an illusion? "The Matrix" answers this age-old philosophical query in straightforward Hollywood fashion: Yes, it says, and machines are responsible! Well, at least the movie offers greater novelty than that provided by most other Tinseltown flicks. But there's still more surface here than substance, intriguing though that substance may be. OK, enough of this nit-picking. The film is fun to watch, which is all we really expect from action flicks. In that regard, count "The Matrix" a success. 7/10
Video:
For those folks who believe the movie is the thing, the video quality couldn't be better. The HD-DVD transfer is everything one could ask of it. The widescreen picture size measures as before, a generous 2.21:1 ratio across my screen (although this will vary from television to television due to differing degrees of overscan). The image is beautifully detailed, well defined, of course, and almost totally free of grain, except that which was inherent to the original film print, sometimes noticeable in wide expanses of white.
The Wachowskis chose an oddball color palette that runs high to shades of green and yellow, so it's a little hard to tell just how "natural" the colors really are. I'd say, though, that everything is in order and in sharp relief. And even though the black levels are intensely deep, darker areas of the screen allow one to see deeply and clearly into them.
Audio:
To complement the picture quality, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound are outstanding in every way, coming into their own in the last third of the movie during the rescue and fight scenes. The sonic range is wide, especially in terms of bass and dynamic contrasts, and the channel separation is clearly distinct from all six speakers. If you can, choose the TrueHD track. It is the wider, more cleanly focused of the two English tracks. Switching back and forth between TrueHD and DD+ reveals a more open sound stage in TrueHD, with a slightly tauter bass. Trust me, you'll like it. The DD+ track, while still very good, is a bit brighter and lighter by comparison.
Extras:
The first HD-DVD contains "The Matrix" film; thirty-eight scene selections, but no chapter insert; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles, with English captions for the hearing impaired; bookmarks; a guide line of elapsed time; a zoom-and-pan feature; and an Elite Red HD case. All three films are housed in their own Elite Red cases, with the final two discs housed in a single, black, double case. The four disc cases are further enclosed in a handsome cardboard slipcover.
In terms of bonus items, these discs have them to spare. On disc one, the most important item is probably the "In-Movie Experience," which played flawlessly. It provides coverage from the cast and filmmakers, most often accompanied by picture-in-picture inserts to illustrate its points. Next up, we get three theatrical trailers and eight TV spots. After those, there are four separate audio commentaries. Whew! Who could listen to all of them? The first commentary is with philosophers Dr. Cornel West and Ken Wilber, a track that annoyed my colleague Eddie Feng, who thought it was ridiculous that they tried to make more of the film's philosophy than what was there. The second commentary is with film critics Todd McCarthy, John Powers, and David Thomson, who do their best to analyze the film's content and delivery. The third commentary features costar Carrie-Anne Moss, visual-effects supervisor John Gaeta, and film editor Zach Staenberg. And the fourth commentary track is with composer Dan Davis, who speaks over an isolated music-only track that allows him to comment on the music without dialogue or sound effects getting in the way. Not enough? There is also a written introduction by the Wachowski boys. In addition, side one contains a sequence of seven featurettes, forty-three minutes in all, called "Behind the Matrix"; a music video, "Rock Is Dead," by Marilyn Manson; and a forty-one music tracks that can be played independently or all together.
Side two of the first disc contains a standard-definition DVD layer with even more bonus items, which Warner Bros. say are only available in the "Ultimate Collection." The first item is a feature-length documentary, "The Matrix Revisited," about two hours long; plus two more galleries of featurettes, "Follow the White Rabbit," twenty-three minutes, and "Take the Red Pill," seventeen minutes. Frankly, after watching a few minutes of each of these segments, I felt like I had had about enough of "The Matrix" and all it had to offer. But I suppose the true believer cannot get enough of this stuff. If I have forgotten anything, be sure to check out the review of "The Ultimate Matrix Collection" in SD, the complete hard-hitting review by my friend, the aforementioned Mr. Feng.
I might add that the menus on the second sides of these discs as well as the final two discs look tacky and simplistic, as though they had come from an old DOS computer program. I suppose that's the point, I don't know.
The Matrix Reloaded
"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead."
--Albert Einstein
If you liked "The Matrix," you'll probably like the second in the series, 2003's "The Matrix Reloaded." It's more of the same, plus even more nonsense.
Indeed, you might like "Reloaded" better, as it contains a few new explanatory riffs on a story that left more than a few people a bit confused the first time around. If, on the other hand, you didn't care for the original movie and found it merely a load of sci-fi foolishness, special effects, and fight scenes, I doubt you're going to think very highly of "Reloaded," which has an even higher quotient of pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo, elaborate special effects, cast members, and fight sequences.
In the first installment we learned that most life on Earth as we know it is an illusion, a gigantic computer matrix of phony realities that we think we're experiencing, while we're really plugged into tiny cell pods controlled by machines. "Reloaded" starts out several months after the first movie left off, the machines are marching against the last remaining human city, Zion, and our hero Neo (Keanu Reeves) is the one great hope of Mankind. Fortunately, Neo is beginning to understand his powers and vision a little better now than in the first film, and he is more capable than ever of taking care of himself and his new world.
While I've never fully appreciated Reeves as an actor (except in "The Devil's Advocate" where he played the perfect innocent foil to Al Pacino's devil), Reeves does fine here as the ex-computer nerd turned mystic hero. Also back are Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, not so mysterious this time around but just as strong a presence; Carrie-Ann Moss as Trinity, whose role and involvement with Neo have been expanded thanks to their popularity in the previous episode; Hugo Weaving as the evil Agent Smith, this time there being more of him (literally) than ever; and Gloria Foster as the Oracle.
New to "Reloaded" are Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, a Captain of the resistance fighters; Harold Perrineau as Link, an operator on Morpheus's ship; Harry J. Lennix as Commander Lock, a military leader of the resistance; Anthony Zerbe as Councillor Hamann, a political leader of the resistance; and Helmut Bakaitis as the Architect, the creator, the godlike father of the Matrix. Even world-champion boxer Roy Jones, Jr., shows up as a grim-faced good guy, Ballard, who, ironically, does no actual fighting.
New as well is the script's exploration of free will, choice versus fate, and destiny that are pursued to some small extent in the story. Unfortunately, most it only leaves things muddled. New, too, is the notion that in order to defeat the machines, Neo must reach "the Source," and to do so he must go through the "Keymaker." Shades of "Ghostbusters." And probably the silliest scene in the film is one where the fate of the world hangs on a single kiss! Where was the editor when he was needed?
But it's the visual appearance and action in "The Matrix" films that audiences find most compelling, and it is here that the Wachowskis top themselves. Yes, there are more turns and twists to the plot to follow and fascinate and mystify, but there are more visually stunning sets, too, more impressive CGI, and more spectacularly impressive fight sequences than before. Of course, none of it seems as fresh or imaginative as it did in "The Matrix" because then it was all so new and inventive. Our having seen such things done again and again in other movies since has taken some of the edge off the flying stunts and the slow-motion special effects.
But you're still bound to find some things of interest. Probably of most regard will be the infamous freeway scene, one of those ultimate car chases that go on forever and destroy about 800 vehicles in the process. It's pretty exciting no matter how familiar it may seem (and it seemed particularly familiar to me as it was filmed close by where I live). Indeed, the whole of "Reloaded" seems more like a fantasy video game than a sci-fi flick, but it's so remarkably well done, most people won't even notice.
I can't say I found Keanu Reeves too persuasive as a lead character in "Reloaded," nor did I find much in the way of high spirits or good-natured humor in the movie. Moreover, there's the overlong duration (138 minutes) of "Reloaded" to consider, the relentless pacing of its fight scenes, the constantly grim tone, and the inevitable degree of frustration and disappointment a person must feel knowing that "Reloaded" will have to be continued in a third part. It's a pall that hangs over the whole picture.
Yet there is still much to enjoy about "Reloaded" in its daring appearance, its goofy premise, its nonstop action, and its general feeling of wonder. "Reloaded" is fun stuff for sci-fi/fantasy buffs, well made and entertaining even if it tends to become more than a little static along the way with all its similarly constructed battle scenes. My recommendation: Don't even try to figure any of it out. Just look, listen, and try to enjoy it. 6/10
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[release]21097[/release]