the good, the bad, and the (very) pretty
Nov. 17th, 2003 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotSpent much of this weekend, when I should have been NaNoing, watching stuff instead... ^^;;
Saturday I went to a matinee of The Matrix: Revolutions. At the risk of repeating everyone else who's reviewed it - ARGH.
What most annoys me is that this and Reloaded spoiled the first movie for me. I liked the first Matrix. I didn't fan over it, I didn't think it was that original or deep, but it kicked ass stylishly and I appreciated that. Also, at the risk of proving myself to be yes, really that shallow, I think Keanu Reeves is hot. I have since Speed. He's great as long as he stands there looking nice in black and doesn't open his pie hole. (Even when he does, at times his pure, slightly braindead earnestness can make you forget his inability to act his way out of a paper bag.)
He was not in Revolutions enough. "Acting" or not. Instead we get an hour of a scifi battle sequence determined to cover every major war cliche, starring chars you can't care about, or indeed tell apart.
Question: You are a highly advanced artificial intelligence, fighting a small group of humans who have trapped themselves in a giant rat burrow which you have finally excavated. Do you:
A) Drop a couple nukes down the hole.
B) Drop a few cans of nerve gas to take out all the soldiers running around in the open without any protective gear whatsoever.
C) Build, with your limited resources, a ginormous army of scary if cool flying octopus robots to engage the humans in single combat, while being fully aware that the humans possess a technology that can render your octobots inactive, because you have not had the foresight to equip them with any EMP protection.
It makes about as much sense as using humans as batteries. (And hooking them into an interactive VR system that replicates a society with a technology level sufficient to understand machines, as opposed to the Stone Age, when they couldn't even contemplate revolting because they wouldn't be able to comprehend their gods.) Well, at least the machines are consistent. But the first Matrix movie got away with it because it moved so fast that you just giggled at robots failing Bio101 and then were oohing at the kung fu.
One plus Revolutions had over Reloaded was the kung fu. In Reloaded every scene was twice as long as it needed to be, including the fights. In Revolutions, while it takes forever to get to it, the final fight is pretty damn cool. It's like Star Wars 2, in which the price of admission and sitting through the tick-pigs was almost worth it to see Yoda, Ping-Pong Ball of Doom. Neo vs Smith rocked. Sure, I've seen it all before - I've watched a lot of Dragonball Z, yo. But shounen fights are fun, impact craters, dramatic rain, flying take-downs, and all. And I'm glad Hugo Weaving didn't choke to death on all that scenery he was chewing. "Kamui, raise your kekkai!"
Revolutions also continued the sexism of Reloaded, in which women are supposedly equal but female characters exist to be love objects. And by love I mean lust. Neo and Trinity's relationship has all the depth of Romeo and Juliet, only without the excuse of teen hormones. I giggled at the first Matrix when Trinity declared her feelings. I giggled in Revolutions when she died. Well, I suppose you can't get your christ-metaphor on without a crucifixion.
Revolutions' last crime was to get the Song stuck back in my head. No, not the soundtrack - that was one thing I did enjoy. I am such a sucker for choral Orff rip-offs. But my sister and I left the theater chanting, "Link! Has come to town! Come to save! The Princess Zelda!"
So after the joy of Matrix, we decided to wash our minds out with a good dose of Japanese. The Cowboy Bebop movie is just spendidly animated, in that sort of jaw-dropping, gawk at the detail in every single shot way. And Matrix, eat your heart out - this is what action should be. The final fight betweenAkabane's first cousin Vincent and Spike is fantastic. No flying, either.
We also rented Taboo (Gohatto). Which should not be watched concurrently with Peacemaker Kurogane. One gets one's Okitas horribly confused. And my Shinsengumi are already mixed up enough with Kenshin - Saitou Hajime is my fave Kenshin char. You can imagine what the PMK Saitou is doing to me. Was Taboo any good as a movie? Can't really say. I'm dense as a brick when it comes to interpreting stuff; it left me going 'huh??' But damn, Okita was pretty. He's too girly for me in PMK, but in this...yeah. No pig, either.
I seem to be developing a taste for Japanese drama, thanks to the live-action GTO. Started out as lust for the h0t Sorimachi Takeshi but soon enough the show itself won me over, soap production values and all. Now I just need to find a place to download more of it...
In conclusion, you should all be watching Full Metal Alchemist. Because it r0x0rs. Though someone should start a Give-Ed-a-Hug Foundation, since Al can't manage it. If things continue this way he's going to be the most emotionally battered char since Vash the Stampede. And I need to figure out who his seiyuu is, so I can put her on myseiyuu to stalk favorite seiyuu list. The rage and the grief at the end of episode 7 were gut-wrenching.
Saturday I went to a matinee of The Matrix: Revolutions. At the risk of repeating everyone else who's reviewed it - ARGH.
What most annoys me is that this and Reloaded spoiled the first movie for me. I liked the first Matrix. I didn't fan over it, I didn't think it was that original or deep, but it kicked ass stylishly and I appreciated that. Also, at the risk of proving myself to be yes, really that shallow, I think Keanu Reeves is hot. I have since Speed. He's great as long as he stands there looking nice in black and doesn't open his pie hole. (Even when he does, at times his pure, slightly braindead earnestness can make you forget his inability to act his way out of a paper bag.)
He was not in Revolutions enough. "Acting" or not. Instead we get an hour of a scifi battle sequence determined to cover every major war cliche, starring chars you can't care about, or indeed tell apart.
Question: You are a highly advanced artificial intelligence, fighting a small group of humans who have trapped themselves in a giant rat burrow which you have finally excavated. Do you:
A) Drop a couple nukes down the hole.
B) Drop a few cans of nerve gas to take out all the soldiers running around in the open without any protective gear whatsoever.
C) Build, with your limited resources, a ginormous army of scary if cool flying octopus robots to engage the humans in single combat, while being fully aware that the humans possess a technology that can render your octobots inactive, because you have not had the foresight to equip them with any EMP protection.
It makes about as much sense as using humans as batteries. (And hooking them into an interactive VR system that replicates a society with a technology level sufficient to understand machines, as opposed to the Stone Age, when they couldn't even contemplate revolting because they wouldn't be able to comprehend their gods.) Well, at least the machines are consistent. But the first Matrix movie got away with it because it moved so fast that you just giggled at robots failing Bio101 and then were oohing at the kung fu.
One plus Revolutions had over Reloaded was the kung fu. In Reloaded every scene was twice as long as it needed to be, including the fights. In Revolutions, while it takes forever to get to it, the final fight is pretty damn cool. It's like Star Wars 2, in which the price of admission and sitting through the tick-pigs was almost worth it to see Yoda, Ping-Pong Ball of Doom. Neo vs Smith rocked. Sure, I've seen it all before - I've watched a lot of Dragonball Z, yo. But shounen fights are fun, impact craters, dramatic rain, flying take-downs, and all. And I'm glad Hugo Weaving didn't choke to death on all that scenery he was chewing. "Kamui, raise your kekkai!"
Revolutions also continued the sexism of Reloaded, in which women are supposedly equal but female characters exist to be love objects. And by love I mean lust. Neo and Trinity's relationship has all the depth of Romeo and Juliet, only without the excuse of teen hormones. I giggled at the first Matrix when Trinity declared her feelings. I giggled in Revolutions when she died. Well, I suppose you can't get your christ-metaphor on without a crucifixion.
Revolutions' last crime was to get the Song stuck back in my head. No, not the soundtrack - that was one thing I did enjoy. I am such a sucker for choral Orff rip-offs. But my sister and I left the theater chanting, "Link! Has come to town! Come to save! The Princess Zelda!"
So after the joy of Matrix, we decided to wash our minds out with a good dose of Japanese. The Cowboy Bebop movie is just spendidly animated, in that sort of jaw-dropping, gawk at the detail in every single shot way. And Matrix, eat your heart out - this is what action should be. The final fight between
We also rented Taboo (Gohatto). Which should not be watched concurrently with Peacemaker Kurogane. One gets one's Okitas horribly confused. And my Shinsengumi are already mixed up enough with Kenshin - Saitou Hajime is my fave Kenshin char. You can imagine what the PMK Saitou is doing to me. Was Taboo any good as a movie? Can't really say. I'm dense as a brick when it comes to interpreting stuff; it left me going 'huh??' But damn, Okita was pretty. He's too girly for me in PMK, but in this...yeah. No pig, either.
I seem to be developing a taste for Japanese drama, thanks to the live-action GTO. Started out as lust for the h0t Sorimachi Takeshi but soon enough the show itself won me over, soap production values and all. Now I just need to find a place to download more of it...
In conclusion, you should all be watching Full Metal Alchemist. Because it r0x0rs. Though someone should start a Give-Ed-a-Hug Foundation, since Al can't manage it. If things continue this way he's going to be the most emotionally battered char since Vash the Stampede. And I need to figure out who his seiyuu is, so I can put her on my
