Not so much a "troll", but there's a scene in the first act that literally lays out the entire premise of the production and the creator's feelings about feeling forced to do it.
There are "lampshade hanging" fourth-wall breaks in the production meeting scenes that make Deadpool look conservative.
The Wachowskis didn't want to do more Matrix. Warner were going to do more Matrix regardless, so Lana Wachowski decided to do it herself and use it to deconstruct both their own movies and reboot/nostalgia cinema in general (looking at you Force Awakens, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Space Jam et al)
Hot take: I was a huge fan of the original matrix trilogy and the animatrix, and while it wasn't what I expected, I enjoyed the film. In the late 90s, we had this whole thing of the corporate drone. That's sort of dead now. Instead we have millennials and zoomers with their spunk and crippling anxiety and standups and fair trade and breaking of fourth walls, and meta, etc, etc. It just feels like the original trilogy were movies that matched the late 90s and early 00s, and this movie matches the 2020s. It is impossible to take the sincere authenticity of the first three films and transplant them into the 2020s without having an identity crisis. This is just the shit timeline we're living in. Movie was on point. Was delighted to see none other than NPH as the central villain. Would have been much worse without him, imo.
I actually really enjoyed the first ~half of the movie, even laughed out loud a couple of times (esp the 'warner bros will make the game with or without us so we'd better just take on the job').
The second half of action-soup was, for me at least, boring and as far as I can tell nonsensical.
I think the movie would have done a lot better without trying to redo any of the gunplay/holodeck-type fantasy, and instead stuck to the more grounded storyline from the first half.
At this point we need commentary in the popular culture on reboots, there is enough grist in that mill for 2 hours at least.
I should add, though, I did like the interesting tidbits on what happened with Zion, how the machines went to war with _each other_, and how a new Zion (I forget the name) was formed, but instead allying with exiled machines. I was fascinated and wanted to know more about that "blue" faction and the "red" faction of robots that are seen briefly fighting each other. That glimpse into the lore was worth it for me.
This is also just a really good evolution from the central conflict of the first three films which is basically like "technology = bad, but we need it". This film shows us "technology can be bad, but we can work together with it to build something beautiful and brighter". Really good evolution there.
I think what ultimately sank the movie for a lot of fans was the Agent Smith actor was replaced. Too bad.
Agreed, the robots fighting each other aspect was interesting, I perked up at that. In retrospect, it's a sensible prediction of how artificial consciousnesses would behave given resource constraints. It's a question that's ignored in the single-hive-mind view from so many other dystopian techno-futures.
Since the 90s the concept of the corporate drone has only increased. Swap out Neo in a cubicle for Amazon warehouse worker, and you've got "the Matrix is keeping you on a tighter leash now".
I find it very odd that people swear the themes wouldn't work today.
I'm not saying things aren't worse, I'm saying they are worse in a different way. The suit wearing corporate drone software developer in a cubicle isn't a thing anymore. Now it's a t-shirt wearing bearded fair-trade coffee lover attending daily standups, writing articles on medium, and inventing yet another frontend javascript framework in their free time.
The corporate drone thing was specifically a reference to what life was like _for software developers_ in the late 90s. This looks a lot different now than it did then. For the average person, sure, your quip about amazon workers is quite apt. My point though is now we have all the same issues, but with a fake sort of "culture" icing pasted on top that makes a lot of things seem substantiative, real, and anti-corporate, when they in fact are not. Things are much subtler now. It also shows a lot of what we've lost -- "hacker" culture used to be integral to being a developer, hence Neo's "double life" as a software developer and a hacker.
These days people barely even pirate things anymore. There has been a mass acceptance of the status quo that is pervasive, dangerous, and wasn't present in the previous era. So while people wore suits back in the day, back in the day was also the wild west of tech. That has largely ended.
Another way of looking at it: in the 90s and early 00s, there was lots of sub-culture and counter-culture present, especially in the tech and "hacker" communities. These days, our corporate overlords have co-opted the term "hacker" and try to sound edgy and "counter-culture" by simply occupying the spaces legitimate counter-culture movements used to occupy (corporate sponsored hackathons, bug bounties, a lot of marketing stuff, etc). So this new matrix movie, for me, partially demonstrates the death of counter-culture, as it was in the late 90s and early 00s. These days you can be the equivalent of the old-school corporate drone by doing a bunch of seemingly edgy "counter-culture" things, and the corporations want it that way. They want you to feel edgy, while staying well within the parameters they designed.
The problem with this new film is that it teases at this sort of social commentary at the beginning and fails to follow up on it in the rest of the film. Besides "swarm mode" (just awful unsubtle naming convention) and "new bullet time that's so uber that Neo can't defeat it!" there's not a ton different about this new version of the Matrix from the other.
We're not seeing the Analyst create a Brave New World type subtle insidious dystopia that's a better reflection of our modern world. We're either told point-blank ("We realized the more angry you get, the more energy you create" is good commentary on social media, but it's told and not shown), and the only hint of digital soma is the shot of Keanu in the elevator surrounded by today's mixed-up teens on their electronic gizmos.
There's no interesting subversion like say the idea that Bugs' new resistance might be misguided in its activities, that the concept of the red pill might be archaic. That it's wrong to be worshipful towards Neo. There's no presentation of the captive humans as craving this new Matrix, of wanting to stay blue-pilled; instead they're zombies who are mind-controlled. There's no challenge to the old message. It's just the same Matrix with a shabby Corporate Memphis reskin.
This movie literally uses the word "sheeple". It's all so hamfisted and half-baked. It is not clever social commentary.
The thing that wouldn’t work is to try to do something sincere instead of everything dripping in ever so hilarious irony.
I honestly can’t wait for gen Z to do something different please. It’s been like 20 years since someone made art that was not ironic
Unfortunately Gen Z only deals in irony, more so than any generation. One of their central tenants is that nothing can be truly sincere. Maybe in another decade or two we'll see a generation that takes this to the next logical evolution -- "everything is sincere"
I don’t know if it’s true that Lana W was forced to do this. I saw an interview with her and she said she needed to grieve about something and that this was what she wanted to do (or something along those lines). maybe true that WB would have done it anyway, but she didn’t seem forced.
I had reservations about it, and I was surprised how much I liked it and how on board I was with it.
I mean, it's not perfect, the third act is soft and there are plot-holes you can drive a truck through, but that wasn't the point and once I settled that, I found myself really enjoying it.
I honestly think I'd have been more down on it trying to be just another "Matrix" film
So at first I dismissed your comment and moved on. But then I realized... maybe this was a troll? If WB really did try to strong arm her into making another one, this feels like the perfect response. "Sure, I'll make another one..." and then proceeds to make sure they never make a 5th.
On the other hand, she has said in interviews that she was motivated by a personal loss to reach out and try to make it. Not sure who actually initiated trying to get the movie made as I've heard both versions now.
I’ve heard a different version: that the Wachowskis were told the reboot would be going ahead with or without them. The movie feels like a very personal “screw you, executives”, in that it denies catharsis to some of the most popular parts of the first movie and at the same time makes some very, very clear statements that echo what Lana Wachowski has said in the past.
It’s what a revival should be: it gives you a way to observe the original work from a radically different perspective, while still building on it. The only other revival that’s done it better has been Twin Peaks: The Return.
> the Wachowskis were told the reboot would be going ahead with or without them.
The writers made this part of the plot of the repeating inner world. Between that moment and the painful scenes of the game designers' cyclic rounds of buzzword bingo, I agree that the movie was at least trolling the WB executives.
In my mind that's undeniably true. The question I want to know is why was the rest of the movie so bad, was that also bad on purpose or just poor execution?
I'm sure you can understand why our beloved parent company, Warner Brothers, has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy. They informed me they're gonna do it with or without us.
The cover ruined it for me. I remember being a kid and seeing that scene with Neo flying and Rage Against The Machine playing and it sent chills down my spine. Not so much this time around.
The ending cover song of RATM's "Wake Up" was just something else.