Month: December 2021

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The Matrix Resurrections

The last time I saw a movie that made me feel like this was Space Jam: A New Legacy, also from Warner Brothers. In that one, it was like a whole bunch of Warner Brothers executives got in a room with LeBron James’ people and decided to make a movie filled with WB IP, James, and little else. This time around, Lana Wachowski, one of the co-creators of the franchise, decided to forgo the partnership with her sister and “resurrect” it with this movie without a clear idea of what should be done.

As the movie opens, we are treated to almost an exact re-creation of the opening scene from The Matrix (1999), but rather than use footage from that film, Wachowski re-creates the scene with look-a-like actors. We’re introduced to “hold onto your butts,” “Bugs,” as in “Bunny” to quote the character. Bugs is a human captain who, with her operator Seq (short for Sequoia), observes the re-creation. Eventually, Bugs and Seq realize that what they are watching is not what happened to Trinity in the original, and we’re off to the races.

Though Wachowski didn’t use archival footage in that scene, there is liberal use of scenes and intercuts from all three Matrix films as she and co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon try to lay a foundation for this film. However, it never really quite works. Much of it is a retread of the previous films. The writers have gotten rid of many of the devices from the earlier films.  As one character noted, “you don’t have to get to a phone anymore.” So, we’re left with setups for fight scenes, followed by the fights, and let’s keep it moving.

Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss return.  Reeves appears as Thomas Anderson, a programmer who wrote “The Matrix” as a series of three video games and, yes, the movies of the trilogy were actually video games. Moss is Tiffany, a somewhat modern-day Mom, with a husband, Chad, and two kids. Tom and Tiffany meet at a coffee house named —wait for it— Simulatte and discuss how much Tom based the character Neo on himself and how much Tiffany looks like Trinity.

I don’t know if they were asked, but Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving had the common sense not to re-up for this film. Instead, we get Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Morpheus and Jonathan Groff as Anderson’s business partner named Smith. Their performances are serviceable, but kudos to Neil Patrick Harris, who appears as The Analyst, who we learned has rebooted The Matrix after inheriting the duty from The Architect.

Frankly, it’s all very meta and derivative, unimaginative, and vacuous. With all the advances in filmmaking since 1999, I don’t understand how the original film’s effects are better than the effects in this film.

I can’t recommend spending $21 a ticket to view this film in IMAX; however, if you have two and a half hours and HBO Max, it’s probably worth your time. The three original films are currently streaming on Hulu; so, you can get the whole Matrix experience in your own home and reduce your exposure to Omicron if you happened to have dodged it from going to see Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Trailer

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Forgive me if I take this out on Peter Parker, but Spider-Man: No Way Home suffers from many of the problems of modern intellectual property; that is that it’s not really modern at all. If I were scoring the film just based on my enjoyment, it would receive a 6 out of 10. If you saw the graphic above, you’ll know that I rated it 8 out of 10. I’ll explain why before you read to the end.

Much of modern intellectual property survives on two fundamental and related things. One has been going on for quite a while now. That’s the repurposing of script elements that we’ve seen in either prior films in a series or story devices that we’ve seen in other movies. So, for example, (using a scene we saw in the trailers,) when MJ falls off the scaffolding, that’s similar to things we saw in the 80’s Spider-Man films and the 90’s Amazing Spider-Man films.

The second thing is fan service.  Sometimes, fan service is desirable when used, for example, in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which essentially were clip films without using clips. They used script elements that essentially recapped the previous 20 films without showing clips but building scenes based on what we saw in those films.

My problem with Spider-Man: No Way Home is that it is essentially a film that combined major story elements revealed in trailers with others recycled from previous Spider-films. It is a movie that Spider-fans figured out on social media. There wasn’t a single story element that took me by surprise. This is from a person who avoided social media about the film from the premiere until I saw it this morning. So, did I find it satisfying? No.

Increasingly, modern storytelling is dependent on familiar content and fan service. This has given fandom a sense of entitlement where if what they want to see in a film is omitted, then the film has no value, and there’s no impetus to see it.

Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers wrote the script for all three MCU Spider-Man films (as well as Ant-Man and the Wasp). Jon Watts directed all three as well and will be directing the upcoming Fantastic Four MCU introduction. Watts and photographer Mauro Fiore did an outstanding job with the material given. The writers attempted to generate pathos and, judging by the reaction of the audience I viewed the film with, they were apparently successful. However, I feel McKenna and Sommers have kind of written themselves into a box and I can’t wait to see how Feige and company get themselves out of it.

Tom Holland returns as Peter Parker and Spider-Man, as does the cast of the previous Spider-Man MCU movies. Every villain from the earlier Spider-films appears in this movie, played, with one exception, by all the same actors. So, it’s an all-star cast that’s we see on the screen throughout the film.

There’s not a lot I can say about the plot without spoiling it.
However, I can say that you’ve seen it all before in one form or another.

There is a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene affecting both Sony’s Spider-Verse and the Marvel Cinematic University.  Next up is another film from Sony. Morbius premieres in January.

Trailer

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West Side Story (2021)

I have a running joke about Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story with a cyber friend of mine. It seems he, my friend, was looking forward to it. I wasn’t necessarily. I kept reminding my friend that Steven Spielberg produced CATS.  That musical, released around this same time of year, was awful, just awful.

Fortunately, Mr. Spielberg didn’t just produce this modern West Side Story. He also directed it. I can give you my overall opinion before you read any further.  It’s better than CATS.

It has always been thought that Mr. Spielberg had a knack for directing musicals.  Our first inkling was the ballroom dance sequence in 1979’s 1941. The director staged a kinetic dance number and a fictional re-creation of the Zoot Suit riots.  The second clue was the opening sequence of 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a scene-setter for that movie.

However, for his first full-fledged musical, Mr. Spielberg decided to mount a brand new production of Jerome Robbins’ original Broadway play dealing with a modern version of the Romeo and Juliet story. Unlike the 1961 version directed by Robbins and Robert Wise, Spielberg gives his story some context, providing this writer with the grounding the story needed.

Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner, who previously collaborated with the director on Munich and Lincoln, set the film in the mid to late 1950s.  The area where the future Lincoln Center would be built was being razed, and inhabitants were being moved out. The neighborhood was once heavily Irish and Polish. Still, as the film opens, the area has become primarily Hispanic and, specifically, Puerto Rican. We come to learn that there’s a battle for turf between the Jets, who are white, and the Sharks, who are Puerto Rican.

Using the music of Leonard Bernstein, the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, and the choreography of Justin Peck, Spielberg introduces the Jets and the Sharks to his audience in a much more believable fashion than did Wise and Robbins. You understand right away why these two gangs are fighting a futile battle both are destined to lose.

Ansel Elgort plays Tony, a former co-founder of the Jets who now works in a drug store after a year in prison for a previous gang fight.  Tony professes that he wants no more of the gang life and is content with working for Valentina (Rita Moreno), the Hispanic owner of the drug store. The other founder of the Jets is Riff (Mike Faist), the current leader. The Jets are feuding with the Sharks, whose leader is boxer Bernardo Vasquez (David Alvarez). Unlike the 1961 film, the Sharks don’t appear to be outnumbered by the Jets, and when the Jets violate the Sharks’ turf, a rumble ensues only to be broken up by Lt. Schrank (Corey Stoll) and Officer Krupke (Brian D’Arcy James).  Later that night, there’s a community dance. Bernardo warns his sister, Maria (Rachel Zegler), that he’ll be vigilant about any gringos who want to dance with her.

Still, I guess you can’t have everything. The musical and dance set pieces all work for me. However, the characterization of the dance organizer in this film doesn’t stand up to the characterization of John Astin in the 1961 film. Maria’s date for the dance, Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), is played a little differently in this film. It was better but still left something to be desired.

I get it. These stories, both in 1961 and 2021, are dance musicals; so, there’s a suspension of belief necessary to follow the story. I viewed the 1961 film before viewing the Spielberg film. I found it anachronistic and, frankly, a little bit silly. In this respect, Spielberg’s film is much, much better. Spielberg’s film makes the love affair of Tony and Maria a tad more believable than the 1961 film. Yet, I still find the romance, taking place over two days, somewhat far-fetched, although admittedly possible.

Bottom line: Spielberg brings dramatic tension to a story that is not wholly reliant on music and dance, and I found the story much more believable than the 1961 film. Rated PG-13 for some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material, and brief smoking, you should enjoy Mr. Spielberg’s official entry into the genre if you like dance musicals.

Trailer