Lee Gowans

seemingly missed this movie, had very little fanfare, but they've made an astonishing action sci-fi movie in line with aliens, looks like an insanely high budget movie too, effects are awesome, sets are incredibly well dressed, definitely in my top 10 sci fi movies.

pretty good extension of the originals, probably the best possible way to back into the prequels given the story, although the action scenes are a little more confused than the original trilogy, rather than 1 on 1 fights with amazing framing and cinematography that led to the first trilogy being filled with awesome scenes this seems more confused with more going on at a time, with actions less framed. No moments, shots or actions jump out as being iconic imagery in the way the original was. the plot is as complex and convoluted as expected, but could've done with a little more exposition to bring us from the previous movie tbh, I was hoping for and expecting a scene setting everything out straight, rather than many hints and snippets of previous events. lots of callbacks and some amusing moments and the usage of the previous trilogy as part of a fictional game in the new matrix allowing us to see lots of scenes from the previous movies without it seeming like an excuse to fill up runtime with old footage. soundtrack is pretty good tbh, hits the same tone as the original. the use of different actors to play previously established characters is a little jarring and I'm not certain morpheus' presence was fully explained outside of being "something created by neo to help him find the way" the actor replacing Laurence Fishburne is actually not bad, and is fully aware of the role he's attempting to fill, and has settled for a "I cant be the real morpheus so I'm just gonna have fun with this" characterization that actually makes it more appealing than it would be if it were someone trying to fill the role as a serious part and imitating fishburne, that would've gone down badly and been very awkward. So instead we get a fake fake fishburne thats lighter, and doesnt act like some kind of prophet. gonna throw it out too, carrie-anne moss could've done with a shave, cinematography did her no favours with all the backlit lighting and make her peachfuzz kinda distracting. of course she's an older lady now, and her looks shouldn't be a dictating factor, but I'm sure she would agree that if she had known, she woulda had it sorted out. to sum up... not as good as the first matrix movie but better than its sequels (although its sequels are required viewing to understand the plot)