Absolutely unoriginal and boring. Incredible special effects.
None of the new characters have enough time or backstory for us to care about them, but they're also not throw away characters - the writers seemed to think we would be too triggered if a single good guy died. In fact, nobody died the entire movie - 100% of the enemies are bots. There aren't even meaningful interactions with agents outside of the ones Neo simulates.
The entire thing was just a big callback to what they did in the original trilogy. Lots of allusion and direct rips. All with killer special effects, but no substance. They think they're being meta and hip by acknowledging it, but that doesn't make it better; their horrible post credits scene about "just needing to elicit an emotional response" and "uploading the catrix" makes it a lot worse.
Nothing in the movie has any deeper meaning. There are zero stakes. The new human city isn't at risk. The Matrix isn't at risk. Literally the entire movie is about Neo and Trinity needing to wake up and get out of the Matrix - if they don't, they will continue living, just inside the Matrix.
None of Smith's motives were clear. He went from being a very strong and interesting character in the original trilogy to a very weak and aimless character here.
Cheapening the power of the One is really detrimental to the film. The Analyst's idea that "Neo was nothing special by himself, he needed Trinity" is ridiculous. It's rather as the Architect said "Neo's attachment to humanity was very intimate." He was still the One with or without Trinity, and his powers were unique to that position. So the idea that the machines can somehow use Neo and Trinity to enhance power generation of the Matrix by keeping them close is both fundamentally flawed on top of being ridiculous. And then letting Trinity be the one to fly them out of danger at the end just steals everything from Neo.
Despite everyone assuring Neo that his fight mattered, it seems that the world is almost identical to where it was at the start of the original Matrix movie. The Matrix is a prison. The humans are hiding in a city to keep back the hostile machines. It doesn't seem like they're freeing many minds. The only difference is that now some machines are on their side - something that's never really explained. This new alliance has yielded the incredible result of.. fruit. Neo's entire fight gave humanity fruit. That's it.
The Analyst and the machines seemed incompetent and weak. The machine on machine violence was very interesting and could have been instrumental in explaining the resurgence in war and restoration of the Matrix as a prison - so naturally it was only mentioned once offhand.
The world wasn't setup clearly or interestingly in a way to support a story existing within it. There is no substance, no stakes, and no point.
Overall it's a huge disappointment. The fact that the Reloaded and Revolutions were better movies that were more coherent and added more substance to the universe is testament to the extreme failure of this move.
Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia.
If anything, Hollywood has boiled that concept down to a science over the past few years, as this film is basically a summary of everything that’s wrong with the industry in a neat, 148 minute package.
It thinks it’s meta and self-aware by pointing out how cynical and cheap franchise filmmaking is.
That might sound similar set-up as 22 Jump Street, but this film proceeds to be cheap and cynical itself without saying anything substantial beyond its own set up, so it embraces what it’s trying to criticize.
Everything in this movie is structured as an excuse to show stuff you’ve seen before, there are little to no original concepts or ideas that push the franchise in an interesting direction.
It’s mostly a rehash of the first film (mixed with some stuff from Reloaded and Revolutions in the second half), except the action isn’t nearly as good, it’s more predictable and convenient, the performances are nowhere near as memorable (that’s what you get from replacing your 2 best actors), it looks uglier and more synthetic, the pacing isn’t as tight, and it’s a lot more dull because of how much it overexplains itself.
It also ditches the cyberpunk aesthetic, and replaces it with something a lot more bland and boring, stripping the franchise from a lot of its personality.
It’s honestly quite an accomplishment when you think about it: the original is one of the best, most successful, big budget films ever made that still maintained a strong artistic and alternative impulse.
This, on the other hand, couldn’t be any more lowest common denominator if it tried to.
It’s a parody of itself and modern blockbuster filmmaking.
I suppose that was Lana Wachowski’s goal to some extent, but it isn’t very compelling to watch.
3/10
This season really suffered from the sizeable cuts to the cast that resulted in the actual plot of the season being about multiple love triangles. This is a stark departure from Season 1 where Polo + Christian + Clara were kept a minor detail of the story (but still used to develop Clara's father's character and speak to class differences) so as not to overshadow the main Marina plotline. They also for some reason played this season extremely safe; nothing bad really happened to any of the characters.. I kept waiting for some real shit to go down but all we got was the last 20 minutes of the final episode, the final shot of which I assume sets up the next season the way the trophy set up Season 3.
Speaking of Season 3--that was also a real banger with the Skins-style direction of having an episode following each character as even minor characters like Valerio had their time to shine (and he ended up being one of my favorite characters). As I mentioned, this season lacked the character relationships to do that again since it basically just rotated between Samuel/Ariana/Guzman, Omar/Ander/Patrick, Rebeka/Mencia/Armando, and Cayetana/Phillipe in every episode.
All told, this is sadly the weakest season of an otherwise stellar show. It still wasn't bad by any means--I never found myself not caring about any of the characters like I do with some shows that hang on for too long. Hopefully it was impacted by COVID or something and we'll get something grittier next time around.
Altough I'm german I rarely check out german TV shows. The last one was Deutschland 83 and that was like two years ago. Germany just hasn't figured TV out yet but that's another discussion.
When I heard Netflix was producing a german show I just had to check it out because Netflix has a great track record so far and Germany does have talent infront and behind the camera. But overall I think this show just fell flat. Good, but nothing great.
Fantastic visuals that are shot very beatifull, the actors IMO are mostly great and the music/score can be beautiful but often gets obnoxious. But unfortunetly there are too many characters that are hard to keep track off which distracts from the story.
The story is already confusing enough even without trying to keep up with the many characters over different decades and it heavily sets up future seasons without answering a lot of questions about this one and just left me unsatisfied at the end.
Still worth watching tough IMO and very bingeable similarly to Stranger Things.
But if you do watch it then choose the subbed version. I checked out the dub really quick and it sounded horrible. And also don't browse your phone as you might do on other shows. You're going to miss so much important shit.
EDIT after Season 2:
I'm not actually sure what just happened and what I think about it. But the one thing I'm sure of is that the casting in this show is absolutely phenomenal. The actors look so much like their younger counterparts that I'm not fully convinced they aren't actually related.
Plus the cinematography is still fantastic and the music monatages are really beautiful (and they got rid of those obnoxious sound effects).
And altough the story is still very confusing I found it more easier to follow and more engaging than Season 1 because I now know all the charcters and their background. And it seems that the writers had this all planned out and aren't just making shit up as they go.
Changed my rating from 8 to 9.
EDIT after my first rewatch just before S3 is released.
Changing my rating again. This time to a 10. After S1 I thought it was good but confusing show (8), after S2 I thought it was great and really well thought out one (9). Now after rewatching both seasons for the first time I think the show is fucking masterpiece. (10). Once you can watch it without being confused and actually knowing what is happening your just in awe throughout all of it.
If they stick the landing with season 3 it could be up there with the best ever.
EDIT after Season 3
Masterpiece. Simple as that.
Writing. Directing. Cinematography. Casting. Acting. Soundtrack. Everything is perfect.
I'm going to miss the beautiful music montages at the end.
If you’re just interested in well choreographed and edited action sequences: see it. Also, kudos to convicingly pulling off the Will Smith clone (minus his final scene), something which must’ve been extremely hard to do given that he’s constantly moving around during the action sequences. However, the story of this film feels very paint-by-numbers and uses way too much exposition on top of that. The set-up takes a lot from The Bourne Identity, minus the memory loss. That’s not inherently a bad thing, but this has none of the interesting characterization, pace or grit from a Bourne film on top of that. Stylistically, there’s a glossiness and fakeness to it all. Everything is overlit, it ocassonially looks like characters are standing in front of green screen (which I’m pretty sure they aren’t), and there’s a fluidity to the movement during the action scenes which makes it look like animation. I don’t know how much of that is a result of the special cameras they used, and how much comes from bad CGI/cinematography/lighting, but I do know that not all of the innovation here is also an improvement.
4/10
Ps:
If you’re someone who loves motion smoothing and oversaturated colours on your tv system—> watch it in HFR
If you have taste —> don’t watch it in HFR.
If Steve McQueen shows the racial discrimination in England between 1969 and 1982 en su antología "Small Axe", we could almost take "It's a sin" as the witness to sex discrimination from 1981 to 1991. "They all died because of you," says the character in Jill, in a phrase that is a clear accusation to Margaret Thatchers or Ronald Reagans that caused thousands of deaths. In times of coronavirus, it is important to remember that there have been diseases doomed to inaction and rejection.
It has been said that it is the best series by Russell T. Davies and without a doubt it is, perhaps because he has managed to create a mosaic of lives in which practically all positions are in front of AIDS, starting with ignorance and misinformation. Ritchie, Roscoe, Colin and Jill, perhaps to a lesser extent Ash, are representations of a threatened community (aka society), facing unknown danger. But the anger that has caused the abuse, denial and death is replaced by an optimistic position: "I wanted you to be the first to know: I'm gonna live." The first episodes, above all, show the vitality of a secret but explosive freedom.
"It's a sin" is an exciting series, heartbreaking, difficult to see especially for those of us who live the AIDS pandemic in the present, who feel fear and pain very close. It is a tribute to the victims, but also a story of survival.
Was in this purely because of Eva Green. I don't know the book and I have no intention of reading it now.
Even with only one episode left I couldn't bring myself to finish it. It was that awful for me. I lost interest around episode four, the fifth was just running in the background. I was so bored I didn't care. The concept for the story is supposedly interesting but if you can't keep people interested in what you're about to tell, that ultimately has to be considered a failure. What is descripted as "fateful coincidences" you can also call lazy writing. Let's be honest, those coincidences are rather unbelievable. Things happen because they have to or otherwise the story would be stuck in the mud. Maybe I'm lacking the imagination and I don't think I'm the audience for a novel written by a woman in her mid twenties. According to imdb highest rating comes from women 18-29 while lowest from men 45+. Go figure, we need demographics here, too.
It looks good, though. Costumes and sets, but that alone does not cut it. Eve Hewson has the charm of a tombstone. Eva Green does her usual best, the rest tries but ultimately there are to many characters to follow.
It's a love-it-or-hate-it show. But I read many comments by people who read the book and say it's bad.
