Two Anti-System Movies from 1999

Edited by JD - February 23 2021 at 20:41

The Matrix

I think some of the Jesus imagery towards the end of Matrix 3 is pretty on the nose. The first movie is more subtle IMO.

Neither. Seen both films once, and neither made much of an impact on me. The Matrix had some interesting ideas, but presented in an uninteresting way.

Erenan wrote: Definitely the Matrix. The red pill blue pill thing has taken on a life of its own and so the film is legendary in terms of influencing culture. IMO Fight Club simply isn't on that level. Fight Club's fine I guess, but the whole time I felt like the film had this smug tone to it, like the filmmakers thought they were better than I am. And the big "twist" wasn't a surprise at all. I knew what was going on from the first moment Brad Pitt appeared on screen. It's kind of like this: Once I read an essay by a game design theorist who shall remain nameless. It was kind of a poorly written piece IMO. And then almost at the end the writer goes explicitly, "Now, you're confused at this point, but look it's intentional. This essay is intentionally convoluted and confusing." The problem is that the essay wasn't confusing at all. The ideas were basic and easy to follow. So then I just felt like, ok, you're kind of overestimating yourself as a writer. I feel like that with Fight Club, but like, the narrative film version of that. Like when someone is explaining to you that you've been sleeping your whole life and you need to wake up, but they're very condescending about it. I knew what the twist was in The Matrix going into it. But I didn't feel like the filmmakers were being smug about it at all. Maybe it was all the zen stuff that made me feel like the filmmakers weren't consciously focused on "doing a great job at making a film" but rather they were "making a great film." And the whole "you need to wake up" theme is more uplifting than condescending IMO.

BTW, this is a great take. Fantastic! 

I similarly always feel like M. Night Shyamalan is using "cheap" tricks to look "smart". He designs all the scenes like he wants to show to the audience, and in the final twist, makes people think like, "WOW, what a genius the director is!" I was never fooled! Though, I loved his latest movie Glass. I figure he redeemed the negative feelings he had aroused in me with that one. Especially, what a crappy movie The Village was...

^ Yes, The Matrix is a bit heavy and demonstrative in all its references. If we have to dig deeper, let's dig a cave: the film is a decent adaptation of Plato's Allegory of the cave... Despite this demonstrative "deeper" aspect of the film, for me it was just good entertainment. Those dancing fights were very much inspired by Japanese samouraï films (think of some films by Seijun Suzuki...). The story of The Matrix is not that original, but they way they adapted all their influences and references into a SF action movie was very well done, imo.

^Then for god's sake stay away from John Wick movies. The last one was 2hrs of running Gunkata with the remaining 10 minutes devoted to plot. A serious waste of time.

suitkees wrote: ^^ It's not that different an opinion on my general take on that (action and FX): when the story gets buried under too much show off-thingies then that's not my cup of tea either. But I can not (and never will) take a general stance against a whole genre. The Matrix found a balance that was sufficiently effective for me, as an action movie (not that it would be in my top 50 or something, but that's a complete other thing). It entertained me so I'm not going to say I didn't like it because it is an action movie...