It was OK if you keep your expectations in check. It was entertaining enough for what it was.

I'm in with what others have said, which is probably most people.

Matrix. It was awesome. One of the best ever. One of my favorite movies ever. Just so goddam great, and still is. Have watched many times. And will watch it again.

Matrix 2. Simply put, the most excited I ever was, ever, to go see a movie sequel. I went to see it at the Thursday late night showing on launch weekend, the first available show. It was kind of a letdown. Having watched it many times since, its not all that horrible, it has some cool stuff. But, it just seemed they didn't carry the concept forward the best way they could have. The mystery was gone.

Matrix 3. Saw it at Imax. It was kinda terrible. Again after watching it, its not too bad, especially if you could cut out about the entire 30 minutes or so where they were in the city having a party or whatever. The ending was overblown and not too original. The trilogy was done, OK we get it, but in the end, the original movie was the real shit.

Matrix 4. Its just what it is. I sure as heck wasn't expecting much, given their track record since the Matrix films. It was a good popcorn night. Just don't expect anything great. It was at least a bit more entertaining than any recent Marvel movie I have seen, such as Endgame. I would rate it better as a callback than that Star Wars 7 movie.

Its just a matter of how you want to contain the world!

Do you say, there was Alien. And then there was Aliens. And that's it, there were no more Alien movies after that. I do believe so.

Do you say there was Terminator, then there was Terminator 2, and no more Terminator movies after that? It would be reasonable. But I kind of liked T3, and T4 too. Even Genisys was OK by me. Terminator movies, they are cool, I'm a sucker for them. But man, they managed to put a knife in its back with the last one Dark Fate. They did it, they terminated the franchise.

Do you say, there were just 3 Star Wars movies? Yes, yes, I think so, in my world. 1-2-3 were horrible atrocities since day one, and 7-8-9 were not as bad, but just, not good.

Yes! Sarah Connor Chronicles was good, we really enjoyed it. We watched in the original run, that was 2008, so long ago. Might be worth watching again, I presume it is out there somewhere.

Yes, I agree. Let it fall into the category of what it is, and its OK. However, you are right about the fighting. This is where there is such consistent failure in Hollywood, the fast-cut fight scenes, where each cut is about 0.5 seconds long. It just flashes by, it has no meaning or entertainment value. Its in pretty much all movies, and it sucks.

To get the taste out of your mouth, watch The Raid

Man having Hugo Weaving would have been a real treat for this movie, such a shame it couldn't happen. I did like NPH, is he not always good??

Agree, it did have a good storyline too. As it unfolds, you’re not sure what the Matrix is, what’s “real” or not, WTF the deal is with the phone calls, etc. its a movie that didn’t build itself on tropes, it invented new tropes. If you look at it now, the second and third were pretty decent all in all. But, they couldn’t replicate the newness of the original, just leverage off of it.

Exactly. And we all knew this well enough. So while I can hardly argue with those who say Resurrection was complete garbage, I hold by my original review - it’s ok for what it is. Mindless popcorn entertainment for a few hours. Add on top of what you said the W’s track record of movies after the Matrix. Did you really think we were going to get epic reboot/sequel that would capture everything that makes the first one great? It’s just not going to happen.

Look at Alien Covenant. How could it fail? It was by original director Ridley Scott, it was based on the awesome originals (2 in this case), you had better CGI to work with, etc.

It was crap.

Look at Mad Max Fury Road. Same damn thing. You had the original visionary George Miller, the continuation of an original epic story everyone loved, etc.

It also was crap.

You look at those two movies and you just think, if I could get Scott and Miller in a room, I would grab them by the neck and shake them, and say What were you thinking!?!?! You literally GAVE us the awesomeness of the originals born out of the creativity of your own head. How could you F it up so bad now?

Some things just aren’t going to happen no matter how much we want it. I hate to say we should just encapsulate ourselves in a cocoon of nostalgia, but hey at least we have the originals to enjoy over and over again. They are so good, they never get old.

My review of Matrix

Agree with your take on this. Furiosa was good, I had no problem with that character. But man I wanted to see Mad Max kick some ass. That didn’t happen. It just felt like an entire movie of Mad Max being beaten on. It is a visually entertaining movie for sure.

If you are craving some Mad Max, you can always revisit Mad Max and Road Warrior, and to a lesser extent, Thunderdome. The original one never gets old, I have watched that many times. And when you look at the way it was made, all with no CGI, it’s crazy.

I don’t think it ever showed him cutting his leg. Max tosses him the hacksaw and your mind does the rest. Max walks off, gets in his car and drives away, and then boom Johnny’s dead. Absolutely classic. Just an amazing movie, but definitely pretty damn dark. Also amazing, he made the whole movie for something like $400,000.

I didn’t know this until recently, the version Americans are familiar with was overdubbed with a lot of American accents. I need to find a version with the original sound to watch.

After reflecting on the movie for a while, I don't think H Weaving would have helped save the movie in any significant way. It would have been great to see him in it, but that would just be nostalgia. It wouldn't save the rest of the mess.

As far as I Reeves, he just does what he does, and collects big bucks for it. Seemed to be the exact same character and acting as all the John Wick movies.

Also yes they cheaped out on the fighting. All the pushing stuff around by Neo and the typical fast cut fight scenes by the others was really annoying.

Hah, we’re not that far apart really. Thunderdome was good, I just said to a lesser extent than the first two. Your last comment says it all, none of them compare to the original. That’s why I agree with you on Matrix Resurrection. This one is all about expectations. I went into Fury Road with hope and expectations of a certain level. Same for Matrix 2, Prometheus, and others. It’s a letdown when they fail to capture the original and you are bummed and you end up hating it.

For Resurrection, I went in with a completely different mindset. Given all of the history and circumstances, I knew there was no way in a million years I was going to see an epic revisit of the original film, it just not gonna happen. In fact, the bar was set real low, about as low as it could go. I figured it might even be a complete mess like Cloud Atlas or Jupiter Rising. With those expectations going in, I stand by my original review. It was ok for a night of popcorn entertainment. But in the end, nothing epic and lots of lazy CGI and fighting. Like most recent action movies.

Prometheus -- I always remember it as the movie with the highest ratio of pre-viewing excitement to the letdown of actually watching the movie. The trailer was awesome, it had great pacing, just the right amount of showing what could happen, and a great soundtrack and really pumped you up. I couldn't wait to go see it. Then I go and see it and....what a mess. I have tried it a few times since going to the theater, and no it does not get better. Its bad.

One of the dumbest scenes in the movie did become a meme, which is called The Prometheus School of Running Away From Things.

Sometimes, I will give a movie another chance, just to check if its as bad as I thought, or maybe I misjudged. Also, sometimes my so-called friends will say they liked a movie I hated, and I am an idiot. So I have to double-check to make sure they are the idiot That's what I did with Prometheus. However, admittedly, I generally do not sit through the whole thing again if I was not liking it. Lots of FF action with the remote in that situation.

I agree on your GOTG2 assessment. I saw it originally and did not like it. I was flipping the channels one day and it was on, so I watched some of it again. And, it was as bad as I remembered, so it didn't last long.

I'm not sure if there are movies I saw that I really did not like when I first saw them, and then changed my mind after some time went by and I liked them. I'll have to think about that one for a bit.

Actually, Matrix 2 is sort of like that. I really did not like it at first. As time has gone by, I have been more forgiving for that one. It does have some cool stuff in it. Really, the shock on that one was that it didn't measure up with the awesome mystique of The Matrix. Maybe that was just going to always be an impossible dream.

I just got the 65" LG C1 OLED. Its pretty nice. The remodeling just got finished, I'm trying to figure out where I packed away all the cables so I can hook up the receiver and surround sound.

TV hung 1 (resized).jpg

Honest Trailers nails it, as usual. Glad to see the comment on the quick cut fight scenes, which I hate.

Also, why not Wick it up a bit lol.