I did not know that! Considering the story behind the films, it is fitting. I remember playing that in the arcade with a friend. I think we failed almost every QTE. Then at the very end we had to fight each other for some reason and I won. It was a good game as I recall.

The problem with "Matrix" is precisely that it does take this very interesting philosophical premise and then mutilates it into a lame and boring standard action flick. The philosophical aspects aren't explored in any way, they are just exploited to form a convenient backdrop for the rest of the movie. One of the characters (Morpheus IIRC?) explains the concepts halfway through the movie and that's it. There's no actual examination of the concepts, no sense of wonder or discovery, nothing. They just took an interesting concept from hundreds of science fiction stories (who often worked with it in a much more interesting way) and used it in a bland and unimaginative way, even the "Bullet time" special effects received more attention in the movie than the philosophical concepts you're trying to read into it.

For a much better exploration of the "What is real?" concept, check out Fassbinder's "World on a Wire", from 1973. Heck, even "The Truman Show" did more in terms of actual exploration of the concept than Matrix did.

I actually don't have a problem with movies that utilize interesting concepts simply as hooks for a genre exercise. What bugs me about the Matrix isn't that it's a simple action flick, it's that it is a bad one. Due to the way the heroes are depicted, all the martial arts and special effects are to me stuck in an emotional vacuum. Also, the movie is much too wordy, considering how poor the dialogue is.

And, to add to your examples of much better movies that actually explore the concepts The Matrix at best merely mentions:

- Blowup, by Michelangelo Antonioni, which retains the technological angle due to the protagonist being a photographer.
- Solaris, by Andrei Tarkovsky, a Science Fiction movie that carries all the philosophical weight The Matrix lacks.

Not sure how to respond to this.

What you're saying is basically BS. The issue of reality isn't ever completely settled in the film even in the last scene it's rather ambiguous as to whether Neo is going to set the people free or remake the world for humanity's benefit. Or possibly something else.

I'm sorry, I chose the most obvious philosophical question that caused the action of the film. But suggesting that the film is bland and unimaginative is just plain wrong. I've never seen a film like it in my life. I've seen a few that tried to replicated the techniques, but none successfully. Even the other two films that used the same basic set of characters weren't able to capture the magic and the only thing they were lacking was that philosophical inciting incident.

I stand by my initial statement that the philosophical backdrop is what made the movie work. I stand by it because that is precisely what made the film work. I've read about screen writing and I watch films very carefully and the question they used at the beginning recurs throughout the film. From the beginning where they take him out and put him back in. Later on when he goes to see the Oracle and he pretty much blows her off at first. And later on when he starts to believe and remake reality in his own way.

Of course it isn't as deep as short stories or books. It's a movie that probably only had 90 pages of script and on each page there was very little text for a story that was told through a visual medium. But, there's far more depth than you're giving it credit for.

I'm not sure how to respond to you. Your argument here is basically that you didn't get the film, you found it to be too challenging, so you'll gripe about the fact that the director chose to stylize the film in a way that you didn't get.

Johnny Mnemonic had a similar deal going where all the characters were effectively half humans with little emotion to them. Like in the Matrix this was done on purpose to carry the story along.

If you pay attention in the Matrix, as things go along, things get less and less emotionally void until the touching scene where Trinity declares her love for Neo. It's still very cool, but you're in a universe where people are effectively inventing a new culture and it works. And where humans are in effect part machine.

As for bad films, I recommend you watch V for Vendetta and come back here and tell me how horrible the Matrix was.

Oh, yeah. The first 10 mins or so really pissed me off. You can't just piss all over the ending of the second film and expect people to like it >_<.

But it's technically not a trilogy.

Likewise, I'd say the third Odoru Daisousasen (Bayside Shakedown) film, but that too isn't a trilogy and the forth and final one was far better.

Maybe this topic needs to be expanded to worst third part in a series.... >__>

I don't think it's possible not to get the Matrix. Not only is it a shallow movie, it also makes sure to painstakingly explain every little detail via its cumbersome dialogue. And yeah, the style is my main problem with the movie. Basically, the characters are too wussy to be awe inspiring (like the emotionless killing machines facing off in Termanitor 2, though admittedly that movie too suffers from cutifying its hero for easy laughs), and not wussy enough to arouse my sympathy (like the original Terminator, easily the best of the movies mentioned in this thread). It's the kind of two faced audience pleaser that isn't moral or amoral (and certainly not deep) enough to engage me in any way.

Killing off the horrible, annoying, unwanted little girl? hell yeah! She should of died in the second one.

I was thinking of Hicks actually. He didn't deserve to be killed off in such a cheap cop out way.

the worst 3rd movie of a trilogy is.....

Look Who's Talking Now.

Jaws 3 is really horrible...But that´s not a trilogy.

I would say "Matrix Revolutions", but ithe second one was also a mess...

What's the general feeling about the 4th one BTW? personally, I quite liked it and thought it was better than the 3rd one but not as good as the first 2, I could see people really hating it because of all sorts of nit picking internal inconsistency issues, I thought it was fun though

Alien resurrection over Alien 3? After the extended bluray release of alien 3 im surprised anyone can say that. Resurrection was a fun film but it lacked the depressing, horror of Alien 3,

Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdome... nuff said.

I suppose it depends on whether you want your Aliens film to be a horror film like Alien or an action film like Aliens...