danielbjonsson-26151

Watching this, I tried to remind myself of when Hollywood last made something new that blew people away visually and stylistically. Iron man? Avatar? Maybe Inception? These last 10 years feels like a constant barrage of remakes and sequels of already popular titles, mostly made by people who seem to not really understand or care why the original worked.

Enter The Matrix 4, a sequel to a trilogy where even the second and third installments failed to live up to the first one. I went in with pretty low expectations, having already seen some of the reviews, but it somehow struggled to live up even to them. I had seen some rants about how it was yet another victim of woke culture, possibly because one of the main characters is a young blue-haired woman, just like the memes, but I didn't think it leaned too much in that direction. It was just boring.

The problem is the same as in many new remakes, reimaginings and sequels. They get most of the surface-level stuff correct, as in it looks kind of like a Matrix movie, but they fail to give us characters that we actually care about and feel invested in. And without that nothing that happens have any impact. The only ones that we have some interest in are Neo and Trinity, but that is because we already know them from the previous movies, very little is made in this one to develop them further, and I hate to say it but Keanu's wooden acting doesn't exactly draw you in. Some other characters show up that we know but with new faces and acting so differently that they might just as well be new characters. And then there is a bunch of totally new ones that have so little personality and character development that they might as well have been made out of cardboard.

The original Matrix had a very clear hero's journey as a stable backbone of a very strange new world, filled with new ideas and concepts for the audience to grapple with. It also hade two, for the time, unique ingredients. The first was the very obvious visual style with the slow-mo bullet time that had never been done before that spawned numerous imitations. The other was taking normal actors, not the usual well defined Hollywood action heroes, and have them do very demanding kung-fu. I remember seeing the behind the scenes clips describing how hard they had to train for months just to be able to do the action scenes, and how they had help from veterans from the asian movie industry to get the choreography right.

Both Keanu and Carrie-Anne are now 20 years older, and it shows. They might look good for people of their age, but it is very obvious that they no longer can do the stunts. I don't blame them for that, but it means that the fight scenes are very slow and full och cuts to try and speed them up. It also means that the movie is mostly talking, and when it is time for the big action packed ending it's just Neo holding up his hands to project a shield to stop bullets with a bunch of explosions all around to make it exciting.

As a result, there is nothing new here. Everything feels like a lesser imitation of the previous movies. In fact, the first third tries so hard to bank on the nostalgia that it straight up shows clips from the original trilogy or just re-creates famous scenes. It actually feelt like a parody at first, with poor attempts at humor, self-reference and 4th-wall breaking. At one point you have a bunch of "creatives" brainstorming ideas for a fourth installment, and all I could think of was that this must have been almost word for word how the actual makers of the movie came up with their ideas.

Also, I have to mention one of the ridiculous things said by the main villain. In his big speach explaining the plot to the viewer he describes how he has taken one of Neo's powers and uses it against him, and that that power is bullet time. Sure, Neo could stop bullets, but bullet time in itself was never his power, manipulating the Matrix was. It was just a cool visual effect used by the film makers that got the name bullet time in the real world. Having it referenced here as an actual power just illustrated how little the makers of this movie cared to understand the original.

This has no right being as good as it is. I mean, it's based on a video game, since when did that ever result in anything better than passable? But despite that this is one of the best shows I've watched in a long time.

I just saw the first episode of the new adaptation of the Wheel of time, and disappointed with that one I looked for something else and just happened to se that this was getting good reviews. It quickly grew on me and I binged the entire season in one sitting.

Arcane does everything right that so many shows and movies get wrong these days. They respect all of their characters, making sure that you understand why they do what they do and makes you sympathize with them. They take just the right amount of time to draw you in to the story and world before having major plotpoints happen, so that you really feel the impact of them. They set up things well in advance and makes sure to give you a proper payoff, so nothing feels rushed or cheap.

And something that is oh so rare these days; they are not afraid to give all of their characters flaws and allowing them to fail, no matter their gender or how powerful they are supposed to be. This is a show with two female main characters that both can overpower anyone, and none of them feel like they haven't earned it. And not once do they feel the need to belittle men to show how cool they are. Pay attention, creators of other shows, this is how you write powerful characters, regardless of gender, that your audience can feel invested in.

A special mention has to be given to the animators. Kudos to you for being able to make characters that can communicate both strong and subtle feelings clearer than most real actors are capable of. And also kudos to the choice of voice actors and music, both are top notch.

All in all a very enjoyable show that gives me a glimmer of hope for future entertainment, looking forward to season 2.