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The only reason I'm reviewing this flick may very well be because I'm so in the bag for all things Wachowski that I feel the need to shed some positive light on this very good film.
I'll get to that in a moment however and briefly discuss what I think may be the biggest obstacle a movie like this has and most likely will always be faced with. Preconceived fanboy notions. Or, as I like to call them: People that already know it all... I like to think I am one of the fanboys and yet I also really enjoy most of these types of films. I suppose that makes me some kind of Super Hero or something. I actually read a review recently that said the Speed Racer cartoon from the 60's was beloved. Seriously? Did you love it? How many of you have even actually seen it? This wasn't even an American cartoon after all, it was a Japanese cartoon that we took and converted to English as is our right here by God.
Another issue that some film makers like The Wachoski brothers have to face is the curse of the "great movie" shadow. They could very well go on and make ten more movies that are better than The Matrix and yet they will always be compared to it and most likely unfavorably, again that is our way, especially here in America.
All right enough ranting... this was actually more fun to watch than I anticipated. The things that were done with the CGI were just absolutely eye popping. They did in effect make this appear to be a live action animated/CGI movie. Which is, in this humble viewers mind a next to impossible feat to accomplish. But they pulled it off and then some. It was gloriously colorful and and I saw several things I had never seen before. To soak something like this in the screen really needs to be huge. To me this is an example of why movie theaters still exist. I will agree with some of the things I have read though, the story was a little weak and did run off the rails a few times. But I'm not giving this flick 5 stars so I'm not trying to tell anyone its perfect.
Perhaps the biggest trouble with the film is the PG rating, maybe there are just too many desensitized people out there that only want their violence served up with the most amount of blood allowed. I actually found it somewhat charming that the movie actually departed from the canon and in reality had only a fraction of the violence in it that the cartoon had. That's not to imply there isn't any, there is plenty involving the cars and a few fights but no decapitations or broken limbs. If they would have completely removed the swearing and the boy flipping the bird then perhaps this may have gotten a G, probably not though, the car racing scenes were pretty intense, but I digress.
All throughout the movie I felt like I was inside a cartoon and that was really cool. I thought the cast was fine and honestly I didn't expect much from them. I didn't need an Oscar worthy performance to enjoy all the effects. So, yeah, I liked it. Go ahead and take your shots, I'm a big boy I can take it.
The only reason I'm reviewing this flick may very well be because I'm so in the bag for all things Wachowski that I feel the need to shed some positive light on this very good film.
I'll get to that in a moment however and briefly discuss what I think may be the biggest obstacle a movie like this has and most likely will always be faced with. Preconceived fanboy notions. Or, as I like to call them: People that already know it all... I like to think I am one of the fanboys and yet I also really enjoy most of these types of films. I suppose that makes me some kind of Super Hero or something. I actually read a review recently that said the Speed Racer cartoon from the 60's was beloved. Seriously? Did you love it? How many of you have even actually seen it? This wasn't even an American cartoon after all, it was a Japanese cartoon that we took and converted to English as is our right here by God.
Another issue that some film makers like The Wachoski brothers have to face is the curse of the "great movie" shadow. They could very well go on and make ten more movies that are better than The Matrix and yet they will always be compared to it and most likely unfavorably, again that is our way, especially here in America.
All right enough ranting... this was actually more fun to watch than I anticipated. The things that were done with the CGI were just absolutely eye popping. They did in effect make this appear to be a live action animated/CGI movie. Which is, in this humble viewers mind a next to impossible feat to accomplish. But they pulled it off and then some. It was gloriously colorful and and I saw several things I had never seen before. To soak something like this in the screen really needs to be huge. To me this is an example of why movie theaters still exist. I will agree with some of the things I have read though, the story was a little weak and did run off the rails a few times. But I'm not giving this flick 5 stars so I'm not trying to tell anyone its perfect.
Perhaps the biggest trouble with the film is the PG rating, maybe there are just too many desensitized people out there that only want their violence served up with the most amount of blood allowed. I actually found it somewhat charming that the movie actually departed from the canon and in reality had only a fraction of the violence in it that the cartoon had. That's not to imply there isn't any, there is plenty involving the cars and a few fights but no decapitations or broken limbs. If they would have completely removed the swearing and the boy flipping the bird then perhaps this may have gotten a G, probably not though, the car racing scenes were pretty intense, but I digress.
All throughout the movie I felt like I was inside a cartoon and that was really cool. I thought the cast was fine and honestly I didn't expect much from them. I didn't need an Oscar worthy performance to enjoy all the effects. So, yeah, I liked it. Go ahead and take your shots, I'm a big boy I can take it.