Sorry for not having another DVD review out today, I essentially forgot about it until it was too late to do one. So here's a followup to one from last year as compensation.
Some of you might remember that on New Years Eve last year I posted a review of The Matrix, I found it to be pretty good, and noted that it "might be starting to show it's age".
Sometime in the following month, my dad was driving me home and he told me that he had read the review. I forget the exact words but he said something like "It might not be amazing to you, but the thing to remember is that all the things that might make it look old, The Matrix did a lot of them first."
That stuck with me, and I thought about it until I came to a conclusion. He did make a good point, The Matrix certainly had a lot of influence. It revolutionized the use of computer effects and fight choreography in action. The act of displaying a scene in slow motion while the camera moves around the subject at normal speed, or "bullet time", became widely used by several filmmakers afterwards. It's bleak, harsh, washed out, black and grey color palette became somewhat trendy. The phrases "Take the red pill", and "Agent Smith" are now part of the culture, or at least they were for a while. The film briefly became controversial when the Columbine shooters performed their infamous act while wearing trench-coats, and said trench-coats (from the flim, not the shooting) became the symbol of "bad-assitude" to many of the people that saw the movie as college freshmen and thought it was the coolest thing on the planet. Countless parodies have been made of every element, from bullet time, to the red pill, to the non-existent spoon, even the green code in the opening.
It's probably too soon to tell just yet, but The Matrix has arguably become part of the science-fiction film canon, along with Planet Of The Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the original Star Wars trilogy, and Alien.
If this movie is fit to be mentioned in the same breath as those films, ones that are undeniably classics, then why am I not impressed with it? Well, maybe it's because The Matrix was so influential, so absorbed into the popular culture, kicked off so many trends, that the origin point of those things just doesn't have as much to offer anymore. Fifteen years turned out to be more than enough time for the rest of popular culture to cherry-pick the good bits and run with them, leaving The Matrix a hollowed out relic. Worth taking note of certainly, maybe shown to film students studying the late 20th century, but not something that is especially useful as entertainment nowadays.
You can probably say that about most of the great classics to be honest. Yes, every film is someone's first, but the rest of us just aren't entertained anymore.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
It's probably too soon to tell just yet, but The Matrix has arguably become part of the science-fiction film canon, along with Planet Of The Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the original Star Wars trilogy, and Alien.
If this movie is fit to be mentioned in the same breath as those films, ones that are undeniably classics, then why am I not impressed with it? Well, maybe it's because The Matrix was so influential, so absorbed into the popular culture, kicked off so many trends, that the origin point of those things just doesn't have as much to offer anymore. Fifteen years turned out to be more than enough time for the rest of popular culture to cherry-pick the good bits and run with them, leaving The Matrix a hollowed out relic. Worth taking note of certainly, maybe shown to film students studying the late 20th century, but not something that is especially useful as entertainment nowadays.
You can probably say that about most of the great classics to be honest. Yes, every film is someone's first, but the rest of us just aren't entertained anymore.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
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