No Matrix posts yet.. Am I the first one here to watch it?

~Yogi

I'm seeing it next Monday.

Make sure to post warnings if you put in a spoiler... I'd like to know your thoughts... but no specifics.

Um, isn't the first showing going on everywhere now?

I've got my tickets the Metreon Imax showing at 8:20 tonight and I'm looking forward to it. I suspect I should stop reading this thread to avoid spoilers.

Matthew

I suspect I should stop reading this thread to avoid spoilers.

According to a guy on the BBC News messageboard, Neo wakes up at the end, turns to Alex Winter, and says "Woah, Bill, I just had a most excellent dream".

Peter

The whole MIS office here plans on shutting down tomorrow for a couple hours to go see it... I totally can't wait.

Yeah, what is the obsession with this stuff anyway? Obviously not the acting, so if it's the technology involved in producing the SFX, let's just say I'm over the whole "bullet-time" thing....

The whole MIS office here plans on shutting down in 2 hours to go watch it.

- trs

According to a guy on the BBC News messageboard, Neo wakes up at the end, turns to Alex Winter, and says "Woah, Bill, I just had a most excellent dream".

I'm quite lucky everyone in the office had left for lunch when I read your post.

Matthew

I'm not going to be able to see it on opening day... No spoilers for a little while please!

Good luck, the reviews have been absolutely savage. For instance:
"The Matrix Revolutions sucks."
-- Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

I will still see it of course, probably in IMAX no less, but I am very worried.

So I've heard, though reel.com gave it reasonably high marks.

I really hope they didn't mess this up, but if they did I'll be glad I didn't buy the last one on DVD yet.

I think people just have unreasonably high expectations for it. It's the third movie in a trilogy, so I'm not expecting much. The only third movie I can think of at the moment that was better than one of the two movies that preceded it would have to be "The Last Crusade" (I consider it better than "Temple of Doom").

Roger Ebert is really the only critic I give any consideration to. I don't let his reviews determine what movies I go to see, but he's usually right about a film, or at least is more insightful about them. Anyway, he gave it 3 stars out of four, which seems about right.

Well I just got done watching it and I have to say I liked it A LOT more than Reloaded. It was intense. The dialogue was a little hard to tolerate at times, but parts of it I liked a lot. Agent Smith bordered on funny in this episode - I really liked his character(s) in it. The character I liked the most in it (and I don't think this is a spoiler because he was also in reloaded) was the guy that got infected by Smith while exiting the Matrix. He does a killer impersonation of Smith.

- trs

Ditto. Just got back an hour ago. Better than reloaded. Dialogue painful at times, plot holes you could fly a chopper through. i'll leave it at that.

Yeah. The action sequences have matured a lot from the first one, but the "wow, cool pop philosophy" factor just isn't there. And the dialog which was slightly camp in the first one has only gone down hill.

I highly reccomend seeing it on imax. A lot of fun, definitly a better experience than a movie theater. Of course, it means one ticket will set you back $15, but who's counting.

Unfortunatly Alex Winter did not show up at the end.

Matthew

Of course, it means one ticket will set you back $15, but who's counting.

If it's anything like the 2nd one (which I thought was awful), I'm glad I'll be seeing it here in India, where ticket prices are 130 rupees (about $2.60 US).

Did see it tonight, pretty dissapointed. Full of unfullfilled potential. Not a bad movie, just not a great one, and with Matrix and Reloaded to live up to, that is not what I had hoped for. Perhaps I expected too much, but I think they made some serious mistakes that they should have forseen.

Good technical merit, fun to watch, generally a good movie. But it isn't a good conclusion of what's supposed to be a trilogy and it certainly isn't a very complex nor intricate story. From an entertainment point of view I feel satisfied that I got my money's worth on the big screen. But the explosions and special effects weren't enough to satisfy my curiosity nor my intrigue with regards to the concepts of reality and dream-state introduced in the first movie.

I don't believe Revolutions is at all "full of unfullfilled(sic) potential" - I consider that an oxymoron considering the content of the picture. I just believe that right from the beginning there was no intention of visiting the potential established by the first movie. The story was simply conceived as a simply action flick with a love-story back-drop.

It would have been monumentally more complex to have concluded the series by revisiting the ideas explored in the first movie, but I did expect more from this production team. Perhaps the trilogy was a victim of its own success. I fear this may be one of the problems in trying to plan sequels or conclusions "after the fact." This isn't something I've seen as a problem with Lord of the Rings and I don't foresee the third installment faltering. The Matrix trilogy just lacks cohesion. And if I can use a few more examples, I felt the first three Star Wars movies fit well together. I don't think the new episodes fit at all with the originals, but I do believe they'll complement each other well. I'm not comparing the three new movies with the originals. That brings us back to the problem(s) with the Matrix.

I'm going to see Revolutions again within the next week (have to take the girlfriend) - I'll keep my eyes and ears open for anything that might help fill the small empty spot left the first time around.

Bruno

So basically, it all comes down to no matter how well a movie is made (story line, FX, whatever) we, as the consumer, will never be happy.... basically.

trying to plan sequels or conclusions "after the fact."

You confused me. Weren't both sequels planned/shot at the same time? Or are you suggesting that if ALL 3 had been (like LOTR), then the 2nd and 3rd would've lived up to the 1st?

I thought all three were planned from the beginning (though obviously not shot). Is this incorrect?

It was supposedly planned as a triology. I admit it doesn't seem that way, but that is what they have always said.

My thoughts: I just didn't care for it much at all, at least as a part of the trilogy. It wasn't bat for a sci-fi flick and there were parts I really enjoyed, but it didn't "feel" matrix at all. At the end I was disappointed and felt that the story-line ended up in a much worse place than if they'd just stopped after the first movie.

It does seem clear to me, however, that they planned all three movies from the outset. The reason I say this (and I touched on this in the other thread) is that they (not so subtly) changed philosophies from the first to the third. Normally this type of thing would make you think the two follow ups were "bolted on", but in this case I really think they were trying to make a point: the "faith overcomes" theme in the first movie was exploded and replaced with a more existential philosophy. This doesn't bother me much (as a matter of fact I find it the most intriguing aspect of the trilogy), but the execution of it wasn't that well done. Losing the awe and "coolness" of the Matrix really made the third movie fall flat for me.

In the end, I never did purchase the Matrix on DVD. Once the second one came out, I figured I'd wait and buy them as a set once they all came out. Now I feel free to buy just the first one, as I have no real interest in seeing the latter two again.

A funny site making fun of how wrong everyone's theories and predictions about the third movie were:

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/film/resolutions.html (and oh yeah, serious spoilers)

Now I feel free to buy just the first one, as I have no real interest in seeing the latter two again

I agree. I've already bought the first one on DVD, and I will probably never buy the second and third episode.
I liked the third episde even less than the second one. It annoyed me that a lot of the stuff seemed stolen from Star Wars (Neo doesn't call is powers "the force", but uses them in the same way - even the hand gestures are similar!). I also thought that the final fight resembled the final fight in Star Trek:Voyager somewhat.
Conclusion : LOVED the first movie, but it was downhill from there. IMHO, they shouldn't have bothered with the second and third movie because they are not worthy sequals to the first one.

Warning: Some mild spoilers:

I think the special effects people took note of how awful the effects were in 'Reloaded' and decided to "cheat" with the effects on Revolutions. Having the final fight scene in the rain and at night would cover up the fact that their computer generated Neo & Agent Smith aren't very good (the movie Godzilla awhile back also used this cheat.)Also, the fact that they had the rest of the Agent Smiths "just watch" shows that as well.....I thought the ending though was a bit of an unhappy ending....

I saw it Friday night. If I look at this movie on its own, it was a decent fantasy/comic flick. Compared against the first Matrix, it fell down. I think that's the problem for me. The first movie pulled back the curtain on reality to ask "Are you sure that thing you see out the corner of your eye is just your imagination?". This movie was more about sitting back and watching the effects unfold. Good eye candy but not much else.

It made me want to go back and watch the original to find out why I wanted to see the 3rd installment so bad.