Uff.
Written in a not-spoilerish way, but these impressions alone will probably spoil things.
Spoiler!
I liked the freshness of things... which is more due to it being a new movie than anything else. Revolutions especially is a massive drag, so I enjoyed getting away from that.
But boy there are a lot of things not going well here. There are good bits, and good ideas, but it's all been turned into a big mess.
The self awareness completely jumps the shark. This is the virtue-signalling of self awareness.
The choreography isn't up to the originals' standards.
Other than Trinity, the "returned" characters had no reason to be there at all.
The CG friendly creatures don't actually look impressive; they seem out of place and a bit below the standard of most other things.
Neo doesn't act like Neo at all, or even an older, traumatised Neo (which could have worked). Instead, he acts like Keanu. Tall, somewhat stilted, goofy Keanu. After a while you just realise that there just isn't the badassery here that was in the original.
Oh and Neo's "flight" scene.... Jesus. The whole movie discards the serious tone of the originals, which I don't mind too much, but this flight moment was too far.
The story is just full of weird explanations for weird things you need to hear more about, but don't. There's tonnes in there that creates immediate interest, that they could go into more fully, but instead it's just another piece of daftness added to the pile and the movie marches on.
And the whole driving goal here doesn't even really seem to matter. It probably doesn't help that Neo and Trinity have always had possibly the worst on-screen chemistry in history.
Bugs was the best character imo. The "returned" characters were really great on screen, but just wasted on those characters. The supporting actors were all pretty good really.
For the first 3rd or so it seems promising. You haven't yet realised that the self awareness is being way overcooked, and you still feel like all these new terms and connections to the past (and time spent dwelling on it) are going to turn into some cool new adventure with new rules. Instead... it just kind of keeps throwing random things at you, here's some action that doesn't quite impress, and we're done.
But boy there are a lot of things not going well here. There are good bits, and good ideas, but it's all been turned into a big mess.
The self awareness completely jumps the shark. This is the virtue-signalling of self awareness.
The choreography isn't up to the originals' standards.
Other than Trinity, the "returned" characters had no reason to be there at all.
The CG friendly creatures don't actually look impressive; they seem out of place and a bit below the standard of most other things.
Neo doesn't act like Neo at all, or even an older, traumatised Neo (which could have worked). Instead, he acts like Keanu. Tall, somewhat stilted, goofy Keanu. After a while you just realise that there just isn't the badassery here that was in the original.
Oh and Neo's "flight" scene.... Jesus. The whole movie discards the serious tone of the originals, which I don't mind too much, but this flight moment was too far.
The story is just full of weird explanations for weird things you need to hear more about, but don't. There's tonnes in there that creates immediate interest, that they could go into more fully, but instead it's just another piece of daftness added to the pile and the movie marches on.
And the whole driving goal here doesn't even really seem to matter. It probably doesn't help that Neo and Trinity have always had possibly the worst on-screen chemistry in history.
Bugs was the best character imo. The "returned" characters were really great on screen, but just wasted on those characters. The supporting actors were all pretty good really.
For the first 3rd or so it seems promising. You haven't yet realised that the self awareness is being way overcooked, and you still feel like all these new terms and connections to the past (and time spent dwelling on it) are going to turn into some cool new adventure with new rules. Instead... it just kind of keeps throwing random things at you, here's some action that doesn't quite impress, and we're done.
Spoiler!
6/10
