The Matrix Revolutions

[Note: If you haven't already you should probably scroll down a bit and read the grades for the first two Matrix movies before this one.]

The Matrix Revolutions: Okay so you successfully made a great movie with great bad guys and reality bending weirdness and plot twists and fights*.  And then beating the odds you managed to make a a nearly as great sequel with even greater and badder bad guys and you maintained the reality bending weirdness and you managed some good plot twists and there were more fights.**

So, can you keep it up?  Can you really beat the odds and make a third movie that's just as good as the other two?

Don't be silly.  Of course you can't.  Nobody has ever succeeded in that.*** Every series that's three or more movies has some that don't meet the level of expectations.****

So how did the Wachowski brothers attempt to do it?  By not making a third movie.  Instead they made a different movie and said it was the third.

See the first two movies were about the Matrix.  People living their lives inside a computer program.  And they were about Neo becoming "the One" and learning to manipulate the Matrix.  We had cool Matrix bad guys (the Agents in the first and then the Merovingian and his crew in the sequel) and we even ended the things with Neo apparently beginning to be able to use his Matrix powers in the real world.

The third movie is about a group of humans living in a cave getting ready to fight, and then fighting, a bunch of machine monsters.  Sure there's a nod to the previous two movies in the first part of the movie but by and large what happens there doesn't affect the bulk of the movie, which is the machine versus man battle for supremacy.

Okay, you say what about the ending?  That's back to being about Neo isn't it?

Sure, but it isn't about the Matrix.  It's about Neo fighting a side battle in the man vs machine war.  Okay, I realize that's what all three movies were ostensibly about, but that's not why I bought the ticket.  I didn't want to see a modified Terminator story.  I wanted the Matrix.  I wanted to see Neo pull out some new even cooler Matrix tricks.  I wanted Trinity and Morpheus to realize that they too could be cool in the Matrix.  I wanted what happened in the Matrix to somehow matter.

And don't even get me started on the final denouement***** Before my friends and I went to see Revolutions we all speculated on how things were going to end.  There were around seven of us chatting about it and we each had one or two theories of our own.  And I promise you, every single one of our theories, (Every single one of them!) was better then the way the movie actually ended things.  Because really the movie didn't end things.  It just tabled them for future discussions.******

Finally, I would be seriously letting down a certain friend of mine if I didn't mention Trinity's death.  In truth, in rewatching the movie it didn't last nearly so long as I'd remembered******* and I really wasn't hurt too badly by it.

So, if you haven't seen the third movie before and you enjoyed the first two, prepare to be disappointed.  In truth the movie isn't bad.  It's biggest problem is that it just wasn't the movie we wanted or felt we were promised.

The Matrix Revolutions: B+

(If this movie hadn't somehow been a stand alone and not the final part of a trilogy, I would have given it an A- at least.)

* - Lots of fights
** -Lots of more fights.
*** - At least I can't think of anyone who has.
**** - Heck, some of them downright stink on ice.
***** - Yes, I know that an SAT word.  Look it up. It will do you good.
****** - That will never happen.
******* - Maybe only ten years instead of thirty-five.

 

The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Reloaded:  What do you do when you have a movie with really nasty undefeatable bad-guys that ends with the main character becoming super awesome and beating those same really nasty previously undefeatable bad-guys?  You do the only thing you can, which is make nastier, even more undefeatable bad-guys.  And you also throw in some plot twists that make everyone scratch their heads and go, Wah?

The Matrix Reloaded is the second movie in the trilogy and if there is anything that keeps it from being as good as the original it is simply that it isn't the original.  The movie really doesn't have any serious flaws in it, except for perhaps that the ending is so confusing you need a white haired grandfatherly type to explain it to you.  And that's what the movie has and even then you're still scratching your head.  But like all movies that attempt to follow up a movie that has a brand new way of doing or showing something or in some other way warps your mind with awesomeness, the sequel will not be better than the first unless it can take it further and do or show you something else in a brand new way or warps your mind with all new awesomeness.

Okay, so if you didn't follow that last bit, ask a white haired grandfatherly type to explain it.  Or just read the next paragraph.

Reloaded does and has everything that the Matrix had, but you've seen it before.  The fights are just as awesome and the explosions and gun fights are just as good too.  They've even added in a car chase.  But it doesn't have that shiny newness of the first time around so it falls just a bit shorter than the original.

Also there's a part at the beginning with all of Zion having a what amounts to a mass rave that just goes on and on and on.*

Of course once you've waded through that you get to see Neo fight 100 agent Smiths at the same time and there are those nasty wraith twin dudes.

The Matrix Reloaded: A

* - And on and on and on.

The Matrix

The Matrix:  Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne together in one movie?  That's gonna be bad.  I mean no offense to either of them* but if you listen to those people who dislike Keanu they will all be saying the same thing.  "He can't act. He's got one style of acting and it's no good!"  And Fishburne?  Name one good movie that he's been in!

Except you're selling them both short.  Okay maybe Keanu doesn't appear to have a huge depth or emotional range but that doesn't necessarily make him a bad actor.  Look at the list of movies he's been in.  I mean he's not exactly trying to make Terms of Endearment here and truth be told I like Keanu.  Sure he's got some stinkers in his catalog**, but he's got a nice percentage of movies I enjoyed once and would gladly watch again.***

And I suggest you give Laurence another look.  Sure he's been overshadowed by Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson.**** but he's been in a ton of movies and TV shows.*****  And sure a lot of them were not that noteworthy, but they weren't horrible either.

And besides The Matrix is a movie that they were both a perfect fit for.  Keanu got to be quiet, sullen and moody and Laurence got to be quiet sullen and mysterious.  Oh yeah and they got to shoot a ton of guns and blow stuff up like crazy.  Add in a great plot and the stellar Hugo Weaving and this movie is fantastic.

Here are a few of the random things that I love in this movie:
- When Neo is firing off of the helicopter into the side of the office building and there's that shot from below the copter with the empty shells and the rain falling down to the camera.  I love that shot.  I've rewound the film before to watch it again.
- The bum in the subway who looks up in a drunken stupor to see Morpheus disappear into the phone and is completely bewildered.  Of course then he turns into agent Smith.
- But then a few minutes later when Neo back flips out of the way of the train as it pummels Smith, only to then have the train stop and Smith steps off.
- The cool car they drive around in with the rear doors that open backwards.
- All of the fighting.  All of it.  It's stupidly well done and looks fantastic.
- And the 'bullet-time' camera shots go without saying.******

Here are a couple of random things that I grimace at in the movie:
- When Neo and Trinity are invading the office building lobby and the major shoot-out occurs.  If you pay attention the walls are actually made out of foam rubber.  Hence when they fall instead of thudding down like concrete, they bounce around.  I've found if you focus on the people and ignore the debris you can pretty effectively 'not see' it.
- But then the scene ends with the exceedingly horrible CGI of the elevator door bouncing across the room in front of the explosion.  It's so bad I would rather have no door and just fire.

Anyway, the movies great.  Enough said about that.

The Matrix: A+

* - Yeah okay, clearly that was said with a little bit of offense intended.
** - Johnny Mnemonic to name one.  I'll never forgive you for that one Keanu.
*** - Including some that aren't action flicks.
**** - In fact I bet some of you thought he was either Morgan Freeman or Samuel L. Jackson
***** - Including Peewee's Playhouse.
****** - Of course I just said it, but whatever





For the record here are a few Keanu Reeves movies that I enjoyed:
Point Break
Dracula
Much Ado About Nothing (though arguably Keanu detracts from this one)
Speed
The Devil's Advocate
The Gift
Constantine
The Lake House
and more

And here are a few things Fishburne is in that you may have forgotten about:
Apocalypse Now
The Cotton Club
The Color Purple
Boyz n the Hood
Searching for Bobby Fisher
The Tuskegee Airmen
Othello
Mission Impossible 3
Akeelah and the Bee
CSI
and a ton of other stuff

Cheeseburger Bobby's

Cheeseburger Bobby's:  Here's a simple rule that you can always use.  It will help you throughout your life over and over again.  Ready?  Here it is:

Never believe advertising.

That's it.

Now I'm not saying that sometimes advertising isn't right.[1]  But if you want an honest true opinion of something the one place you shouldn't be looking is from that same person, company, product, etc.  Advertising is there for one reason and one reason only, to sell you something.  And really how much can you rely on the person who is trying to get you to part with your hard earned cash to tell you the unadulterated truth?[2]

If you aren't completely blind and you pay attention at all you're bound to see some of Cheeseburger Bobby's advertising.  They feature prominently the line, "Voted Best Cheeseburger."

Excellent! You tell yourself.  I'm in the mood for a cheeseburger and if I'm going to get one, then I should probably get the "Best" one.  Shouldn't I?

Well before you dash off and hand Bobby some of your moolah, lets take a closer look at that line and ask a few pointed questions.

First question: Voted Best Cheeseburger of where?  Best in the the city?  The county?  The state?  The entire United States?  The whole world?  Or maybe it was just voted the best cheeseburger you can get at a Cheeseburger Bobby's location.

Second question: What was the competition?  Did they compare all cheeseburgers available?  Presumably we are saying best cheeseburger of some sizable location.  Did the judges have at their disposal all cheeseburgers available in that area?  Or maybe it was voted the best cheeseburger in a taste test between Cheeseburger Bobby's, a McDonald's cheeseburger[3] and a Krystal.

Third question: By who?[4]  Was it a blind taste test of the public?  Is there some official American Cheeseburger officiating body that we've never heard of in charge of these things?  Or maybe it was voted best cheeseburger by the employees at Cheeseburger Bobby's.

Person in Charge of Taste Testing [PICoTT]:  Okay, now that you've all signed the forms, I want you to tell me which cheeseburger is the best.  Bear in mind that if you say anything other than Cheeseburger Bobby's you are fired.
Employee 1: Cheeseburger Bobby's
Employee 2: Cheeseburger Bobby's
Employee 3: Cheeseburger Bobby's
Employee 4: Five Guys
PICoTT: Right it is unanimous.  Cheeseburger Bobby's is the best!
E4: But I voted Five Guys.
PICoTT: And you're fired.
E4: Nevertheless, it's not unanimous.
PICoTT: Actually if you read the small print of the form you signed it says that saying anything other than Cheeseburger Bobby's retroactively fires you before the testing began and thus invalidates your opinion.  Thus unanimous.

Fourth Question: Best by what standard?  Best tasting?  Best looking?  Best beef?  Best toppings? Best burger to smear on your ex-boyfriends car windshield on a Friday night after he's broken up with you?

Anyway you get the point.  Advertising = Lies.  Don't believe it.

Having said all of that, I found Bobby's to be okay. Better than McDonald's for sure, but by no means the Best.

UPDATE: As it happens I've been to Cheeseburger Bobby's several more times since this was originally posted.  Lest you think my opinion of their burgers has changed, I still think they are adequate but not the best.  However, they have a chocolate dipped frozen custard cone that is unbelievably good.  It's just a simple ice cream cone covered in chocolate.  Except that it's frozen custard and not actually ice cream. And then it's covered in chocolate.  The cone itself is a cheap "cake" cone you can buy at any grocery store for a pittance.  But never mind the small details, it is awesomely good.  To make matters worse, they give away coupons for a free cone all of the time.[5]  So if there is a ballot out there somewhere, marked me down as having voted it, "Best Chocolate Covered Frozen Custard Cone".

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Bobby's has grown on me.  Part of it is that you have to find the right combination of ingredients.  Trying to put everything on the burger is not the way to go.  For me, I usually get a double cheeseburger.  Then I put a ton of onions on it, a ton of jalapenos on it and slather it in BBQ sauce.  It is downright amazing.

Bobby, I recant my earlier doubts.  Please forgive me.  You are in fact the best.


Cheeseburger Bobby's Cheeseburgers: A
Cheeseburger Bobby's Chocolate Covered Frozen Custard Cone: A+


[1] - The rule isn't, "Advertising is always wrong."
[2] - The answer is, "Not Much."
[3] - Not a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder but a plain little cheeseburger.
[4] - Or is it, "By Whom?"  Truthfully I don't care.  imho, grammatical errors that over half of the people are making are not errors, they are now acceptable usage.

[5] - I've found them on my windshield at the theater, lying in the parking lot outside of Target and today I got one at Cheeseburger Bobby's after I bought my meal.  Silly Bobby, I was going to buy one anyway.

Prometheus

Prometheus: In general I like the Aliens movies, so I was keen to see this movie when it came out.*  And overall I have to say that it was pretty good.  Visually it is great.  Very very pretty when it was supposed to be pretty and creepy when that was called for and so on.  

Mostly it falls down in the plot department.**  A good bit of it just doesn't really make sense and in other places the movie is trying so hard to allude to things without actually telling you something that it totally fails to get any point across at all.  I don't want to spoil anything for anyone else who may want to see it but hasn't gotten around to it, so I'm not going to give things away.  But if there's one thing that will destroy my enjoyment of a movie it's logical flaws. 

I will give it this though.  Initially I assumed it would just essentially be another aliens movie.*** But it really wasn't.  There were some things that were nearly the aliens we've seen before, but mostly it was all new stuff.****

So if a few plot problems either won't bother you or won't be noticed by you and you've liked the other Aliens flicks, you'll enjoy this one too.  It does a fine job with tension and monster attacks and fighting amongst the crew, etc, etc.  You get your fill of semi-creepy artificial humans and you get Charlize Theron.*****  Though it does occur to me that a lot of the good tension and stress that the movie does has is only there because of the previous Aliens movies.  I wonder if you'd find the movie less engaging, if you have no idea what a face-hugger is and you don't know anything about the reproductive cycles of the Alien critters.  Though I believe the idea of "Don't open that!" is a pretty universal one.

Prometheus: B-

* - Evidently not that keen though since I've only now gotten around to it.
** - Like so many movies
*** - Humans unleash bad monster.  Bad monster kill off all the humans.
**** - The last scene not withstanding.
***** - Though really her character is minimized almost to the point of pointlessness.

 

The Fourth of July & Independence Day

In my experience there are two things you should never bother to argue about: politics and religion.  You can spend a lot of breath and energy making as many good points as you'd like about either topic, but unless the person you are talking to is already on your side, you're wasting your time.*  I've listened to two grown men, who I thought otherwise intelligent, arguing until they were red in the face.  Both completely furious that the other person couldn't see the simple truth of the facts that they were presenting and neither listening for one minute to what the other was saying.

Having said that, I'm now going to flirt with breaking that rule.

It seems to me that there is a difference between "The Fourth of July" and "Independence Day" and it's a shame that most Americans seem to have lost the importance of one of them somewhere along the way.

The Fourth of July: This is a day in which families and friends get together and celebrate.  They generally grill out, have picnics, or participate in some other food gathering that typically takes place outside.**  They participate in other outdoor activities like father-son softball games, three-legged races, egg tosses and the like.  A lot of watermelon and beer is consumed and then the day is capped off with a bunch of great fireworks that thrill us as they light up the night sky.

Independence Day: This is a day in which Americans remember that the country that they live in wasn't always here.  They take time to recognize that the freedoms that they enjoy were not free to begin with and maintaining them is not free now.  And they understand that a lot of people have paid a huge price to make sure that they have and continue to have those freedoms.  They might just go one step further and see that while there are differences of opinion on how to continue running our great nation, we are fortunate in the extreme to be able to spend so much time arguing about how we're going to do it and realizing that even if the other party makes some ground on their political agenda we are all still amazingly fortunate compared with most of the rest of the world***.

Anyway, those are some thoughts I've been mulling over for the last couple of days.  I hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July and I hope you had an Independence Day.

Fourth of July: B
Independence Day: A+


* - Of course arguing to people who are already on your side is also a waste of time.
** - The current temperature hovering around 100 degrees notwithstanding.
*** - Or really amazingly fortunate compared to all of the rest of the world.  (Sorry, rest of the world.)

The Infinite Quest & Dreamland

For some reason the creators at Dr. Who decided to make a couple of animated episodes* starring David Tennant as the 10th Doctor.  Hold on . . . .

. . . . the Interweb has informed me that both of them were created as serials** and released on several different websites and the like over the course of several weeks.

Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest This one has Martha Jones travelling with the Doctor on a quest to find a space ship (The Infinite) that can apparently make your "greatest desire" come true.  There's actually very little to do with the ship and mostly it is a series of vignettes in which the pair track down the four pieces that will lead them to the ship.   Now that I know it was released as a serial it makes much more sense as each piece is pretty much a stand alone mini-adventure.  Nevertheless they do a good job of giving it that "Doctor Who" feel.  The animation isn't bad, though a lot of the time the Doctor doesn't really look like David Tennant at all.    Also the main bad guy is kind of a tool bag.  In the sense that I kept thinking to myself, why doesn't the Doctor just trick him into falling into a hole or something.

Doctor Who: Dreamland This one has the Doctor travelling alone.  He ends up in the desert in Roswell, NM looking for some chili from a roadside diner.  He ends up running around with the waitress and an American Indian*** guy.  They save the Earth from being taken over by aliens.  Of the two this one has much crisper writing and the plot flows better.  But of the two this one is much less a series of small episodes.  The animation in this one is unfortunately a little worse.  Mainly in the people.  They are clearly computer animated and they move with that stiffness that cheap animation gives people.  Though on the plus side the Doctor looks much more like David Tennant.

Both episodes are relatively short (~45 minutes) but if you like Doctor Who at all they are worth watching.

The Infinite Quest: B+
Dreamland: A-

* - There are apparently three other animated episodes, but they came well before these two and star other Doctors.
** - Meaning, released in small snippets over time and having nothing to do with breakfast
*** - Though at times it's hard to tell that's what he's supposed to be.