The Matrix: Sci-Fi Excellence

And now I begin the journey of slobbering and raving all over The Matrix series. You know those experiences in movies when, after it’s all over, you want to believe what you saw is real? I had that. And the insane desire to practice martial arts moves. I can say with pure conviction that this movie was the exact point where I defined

That’s a stunner right there.

myself as a person. My love for action/martial arts films started here. My love for metal also started here. With how I’m saying this was such a definitive movie in my life, how can it not be considered amazing and a game changer?

For those who don’t know what The Matrix as a movie/concept is, I’m not gonna reveal too much, but I’m going to talk about this movie at great length. So sit back, relax, and be ready to jump into that rabbit hole.

Mr Anderson…

The Matrix is the story of Neo (Keanu Reeves), a computer hacker by night and a computer programmer by day. The duality between his life is cleverly dictated by colors and clothing as well as surroundings. On a constant search for Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Neo must steer two lives as Mr. Anderson and Neo in order to bring some semblance to his life. But he discovers something he may not have expected. In a chance encounter with Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), Neo realizes the truth about the turn of the century world we live in even as we speak.

In a world so heavily controlled by technology and computers, it isn’t any wonder that a film with complete computer

Black is back.

dependence would be created. It adds an element of mystery to it when the creators of the film, the Wachowski Brothers, are really not well known at all. Wanting to keep their own privacy, it seems as if these brothers know something about the world they’re not supposed to tell…

He is the one. (How many times have you seen this homaged in movies?

I truly love all the influences that the Wachowski Brothers drew on in order to make this movie. Anime style world and immersion, sci-fi concepts and futuristic ideas of control and advancement, Kung Fu fight scenes, even turn of the century CG effects and camera techniques. This movie, in 1999, was the true game changer when it came to creating a whole new era of cinematography and special effects through computer graphics. This movie was well thought out in all aspects and stands as one of the last true bastions of original thought in cinema. Stand aside Inception, you took your “original” ideas from The Matrix. (The whole time I was sitting in the theater at Inception, I thought hmmm, this seems familiar… A dream within a dream? More like, are we within the Matrix?)

She wrecks pretty hard in this one.

Some people criticize the first film for creating this amazing start to a story with original story and unconventional means of explanation. Then the second half of the film deals with guns and fighting, turning into a traditional action film. That is EXACTLY what I wanted from this film. I am a sucker for great fight scenes and lots of blood and carnage. This movie made me think at the same time that it delivered in a visually stunning way. When you can cross genres like this film did, you know you created something unique.

Add to wonderful things about this film: acting. You got a great cast that each person has done a handful of works, but not that well known. You got Laurence Fishburne, a man who will always been seen as

The greatest fight scene of all time.

Morpheus. His ability to act as sensei and grandmaster of knowledge and leadership shines in this film. Joe Pantoliano as Cypher. He did some work before this, but I felt this was a springboard for a lot of actors to get bigger and better work heading into the 2000’s. His “cheesy action lines” felt well delivered, as did every line in this film. This is one of those movies in which every line feels original, as if Neo is awaking to a world where everything is new and fresh. That’s excellent. Carrie-Anne Moss is the sexy, badass, femme-fatale chick who rocks the short haircut and kicks in bullet time. I had no idea who she was, but this movie made me aware a woman can be just as cold and calculated in a film like this. Cue every other female hero in a movie after this one.

A world gone wrong.

And then we come to Keanu Reeves as Neo. People complain he didn’t do well. People make fun of Keanu Reeves in general as always playing that dumbass Ted from the Bill & Ted movies. I would say he lost the surfer accent in this movie and really took the reins. His character dictates the film and discovers himself throughout the series, regardless if anyone thinks Keanu is a good actor. Here’s the thing though. Could you imagine anyone else in the role of Neo? Will Smith turned it down because he felt he wasn’t mature enough of an actor to do the role. And Nic Cage was offered the role. As amazing of a movie as that would’ve been, it wouldn’t have been as good. I think the Wachowski Brothers made the best choice possible. Of anyone.

So you got the great acting, the amazing cinematography and effects, and an amazing storyline. What more could you need? ENTER THE AMAZING SOUNDTRACK. Don Davis absolutely

Mind bending with Aang. (Am I right?)

created the best score possible to set the tone for this movie. An amazing brass section to create revelation moments throughout the film, making the jumps and feats seem that much more badass. Quick trills and a pounding bassline when needed just to make you wish you were onscreen, in the Matrix, doing what Neo is doing. When a soundtrack, not even the songs used, can pump you up that much, that is an award winning musical score.

And then there’s the songs from the film. Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, Deftones, Rage Against the Machine… Talk about all the 1990’s greats that have exploded into the 2000’s. This movie made “Calm like a Bomb” at the end feel like the only song anyone could ever

I’m calm like a bomb.

end a film with. So kick ass. When I heard those ending credits roll, I knew what kind of music would define my life for the rest of it. Superb.

So combine all these outrageously amazing aspects into one film and create a series out of it? You have me hooked for life. I would consider this in the top three movie trilogies of all time, probably #1 of all time. Nothing gets better than this if you love movies. No question. 10 out of 10. Check it out to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes (I also love Alice in Wonderland. Go figure.)

100 Feet

It’s not every day you see Famke Janssen under house arrest for killing her husband. And it’s not every day that you see a vindictive poltergeist wreaking havoc all over her life for killing him. In this version of what I would consider Jennifer Lopez’s “Enough” gone wrong, Famke Janssen is haunted by her husband she killed in self defense. There are some frightening scenes and I really enjoyed the way that the jumpy scenes are strewn throughout without warning, not just built up until the end. With a minimal cast and quality acting, this was a horror movie that was unfortunate that I hadn’t seen sooner.

Marnie Watson (Janssen) is a newly paroled felon who has just been released from prison and given house arrest in her house. This is the very house that she killed her husband in in self defense. A little twists is that her husband was a police officer, and the partner cop to the man who will stalkingly watch her for the rest of the film, Officer Shanks

Famke Janssen, terrorized all over again.

(Bobby Cannavale). I was semi-impressed with Cannavale’s performance in this film, only because it wasn’t a stretch for him to play a hardened Brooklyn cop. He’s a character actor and it’s all good.

So Famke’s ass gets locked up with a house arrest anklet that only allows her to go within a 100 foot radius in her own house. If she leaves the confines of the house, the alarm will set off and she has only seconds to return to the barrier. This is a problem because parts of her huge and nicely furnished house are off limits to her, including the basement. Plot device, anyone? So Marnie returns to a semi-life of normalcy and goes about buying groceries, cleaning house, ad finding anything she can do to keep busy.

The face of a wife beater…

It’s not any help that the entire neighborhood doesn’t believe that she fought in self defense to save herself. Looked down upon by everyone, only one delivery boy, Joey (Ed Westwick) finds no problem with her. Attempting to be her friend, Marnie copes with a life of solitude. Until her husband starts attacking her from beyond the grave. In a series of scenes that bust up her and her house, Marnie starts reliving all the horrible beatings her husband gave her in life. And this time around, Marnie has had enough of this poltergeist B.S. She’ll fight back at any cost necessary. Without being able to leave her house, this plot restricts her from running away. It’s time to kill again.

I really liked the simplistic plot of this film. It was a creative idea, although I’m not sure they would lock her up in the same house she killed in, as poetically justified it may seem. There are some great haunting scenes in the movie involving a lot of things breaking (including some bones). Ed Westwick plays a reasonably real character in this film, although he’s a straight tool for his work on Gossip Girl. I’d say this is one of his better works. Hauntings and devilish exorcisms and demons are more my style when it comes to horror, so this movie was right up my alley. There’s a great kill scene in the movie, and, although the CG effects in this movie are a bit Syfy channel middle of the road, it doesn’t detract from the whole overall

I know I’ve been stalking you for a while now, but did you know you look like that read headed wench from X-men?

experience of the movie. It’s brutal, and it does the job of performing as a threatening and horrifying film (didn’t scare me much, but all the same, the lights were on).

Most of the time, I’m a tool.

The one thing that will either disappoint you or make you laugh will be the end of the film. There’s some strange confrontation and a ridiculous explosion of an ending that would give Michael Bay a boner. It ruins the whole otherworldly feel of the movie and gives rise to a really dumb explanation of why he’s haunting her and how to stop him. Everything is resolved and, in a really sloppy style for a poltergeist, Shanks believes her and gives her the happy ending she wanted from the beginning. It just really comes down to the sub-par dialogue at the end and that explosion. I can’t get over how that ruined the movie.

But, from beginning to middle, this movie was well executed. It has the right amount of horror and plot, jumpy scenes and furthering events. Famke Janssen did her job (not as Phoenix from X-men, obviously) and gave the woman in peril role new meaning. She fought back with a butch attitude I wasn’t entirely expecting. She doesn’t frighten away like most women do in films and really sticks it to her husband in the film. There’s a real in your face attitude about this horror movie and that made it a breath of fresh air. It’s only the ending that takes down the rating. I’ll give this little horror film a 6.2 out of 10.

Janssen won’t back down easily.

Wrath of the Titans

I had never seen the first of what may be a trilogy. I had no expectations for the second one. My friend asked me to go see it and so I did. And I have mixed feelings about Wrath of the Titans. A movie series sparked from the 1981 version, this is just one of those typical action movies. It may have some flair and epic qualities to it with its mythology come to life for Perseus, but I’m not really sure where this series is headed. I’ll just let time and some 3-D/CG effects ride the tide until the next Kraken-like creature bubbles up from the Netherworld.

What guy doesn’t like a bit of mythology with his films? I enjoyed it somewhat, but I wasn’t sure how accurate the film was to the myths. You got your Zeus (Liam Neeson), your Poseidon (Danny Huston), and you got your Hades (Ralph Fiennes). Throw in some Sam Worthington for good measure and you got yourself a film about defeating a Titan. Although it is strange this series is following the titling of Star Wars, I won’t complain too much. What I don’t get is where people get off considering Sam Worthington a quality actor. He’s good in what he does in action films, but I dunno if Avatar gave him a big head or not. Same goes for you too Thor…

Metaphor for acting career? (Hint, it’s a struggle.)

So this movie takes place a decade after Perseus killed the Kraken (thanks Wikipedia). He’s got a son now and that damn kid can’t stop crying and making all these weird faces and noises throughout the film. Even when he’s supposed to be brave at the end, he ends up yelping like a beaten dog. Where did they find this kid? So he is almost killed by the initial attack on Perseus’ shanty town by a pair of Chimeras. This scene was rather basic and didn’t really get me too hyped up yet. It doesn’t really look like Perseus/Worthington is in rare form yet and hell, it doesn’t look like he’s interacting with the beasts at all. Heads up there Warner Bros., you’re behind the ball on that new wave tech shit.

A couple of old bro’s slanging some magical spells.

Meanwhile, in the Netherworld, Kronos, king of the Gods is all tied up by his snotty young hoodlum children. But there’s a twist! Hades and Zeus’s son Ares (Edgar Ramirez) are planning on draining Zeus in order to unleash Kronos and reattain immortality. They’ve become weak because of some comment on religion and how paganism isn’t popular anymore. Things get heated and its up to Perseus, a scraggly, yet funny Agenor the Navigator (Toby Kebbell), and Andromeda (Rosamund Pike). Of the three, I’d place my best bet on Agenor. That Toby Kebbell is a relaxed, naturalistic actor who I now appreciate because of this movie. He definitely deserved his father’s trident for that one.

So there are some cyclops, some lava slanging behemoths, and some molten crusted, two-headed beasts. I would almost say that the trailer built up the movie a bit too much for how much they suggested was action in this film. There’s even a disappointing fight between Perseus and the Minotaur in this film! That beast is just as big as Perseus is, how is that possible? But there’s a lot of old man Zeus grunting and some anticlimactic fighting in what is a strange ending with Perseus and Pegasus. Worthington passes on the torch to his son and one of the only things I can say about this movie is that Gods died in this movie. Who is gonna be left to make this a trilogy with so many mythical beings gone? We’ll see if Titans makes a strategic move and decides to pit Christianity against Paganism. I’d watch that. For this, I’ll give it an entertaining watch with a 4.6 out of 10.

Set him free Sam, set him free…

RoboCop: The Future is Born

I had never in my 21 years of life ever before seen a RoboCop film. Hearing of how cheesy they look today and how they would insult my CG effects sensibilities, I was hesitant to check out this film on Netflix. My roommate did only the slightest of convincing and we sat down to watch. I was pleasantly surprised. Being hailed as a good film in its time for the issues it brought up and the icon it created, RoboCop can be seen as an overall achievement for all its done. And, right in the vein of claymation/animatronics that I’ve come to love too. Thank you Hellraiser.

RoboCop is the story of a rundown Detroit (as if Detroit didn’t already have a bad rap…) in which crime runs rampant. In such a desperate time, Detroit’s police force has been bought out by the Omni Consumer Productions Corporation (OCP). Hoping to bring up the efficiency of justice, OCP has created some prototypes to help this along. In error, OCP’s senior VP Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) creates a robot that malfunctions and maliciously kills a fellow worker. With this disaster under wraps, it is up to another boardmember, Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) and his robotic-cop idea to shine. In this cutthroat world of business, anything goes. (And this is an issue later.)

The future of policing.

Meanwhile, a newcomer to the Detroit scene is hittin’ the streets. Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is a transferred cop out to prove just how good he is. And prove he does. He gets kidnapped by a gang led by a man named Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith). You may recognize him as Red from That 70’s Show. I’ll always remember him from RoboCop. Anyways, Murphy gets lit up. And I mean shotgunned to death. Arm destroyed, torso torn, shot dead. Animatronics at its most frightening. It was intense to say the least. You can guess where the rest of the movie goes at this point. Murphy is turned into RoboCop and helps clean up the streets. But there’s mischief afoot. And some inside guys need to be taken out.

Peter Weller, you freaky old bastard you.

All in all, the acting was sub par in this movie. I didn’t recognize many of the actors, although I had seen Miguel Ferrer in something or other. Peter Weller is more of a cult classic actor/T.V. production actor, and completely fell under my radar. You know who didn’t? Ray Wise. This best of the B-rated actors is quite high quality in my book. This Tim and Eric returner is the best hug teacher and Shrim disposer out there. Thanks and Great Job!

Other than that, not a lot stood out to me in this film. The plot chugged along, the ending could have ended a bit sooner, and I think this is one of those movies which could have a successful remake. And I don’t say that often. Some updated acting and an even darker element to this movie would really spice it up as a need to see action movie. Still set it in the 1980’s, this movie could benefit from a touch-up. But enough about that. The simple fact that this movie was so successful it created a merchandise franchise. I give props to a film that can create more than a movie from their idea. Good ideas about the crime of America and its economy went into this film, something to be commended on. Let’s see a remake soon… maybe. 5.5 out of 10.

You're in for a world of hurt, Red.