While the single take execution on display here is certainly deserving of praise, I can't help but think of it as the cherry on top of an already great film. The writing and performances are brilliant. The efficiency of character development is absolutely masterful, as the film somehow manages to juggle a large ensemble cast in 90 minutes. Some of these characters don't get more than a few minutes of focus and a few lines of dialogue, but that's all this film needs to make them feel real. This is all anchored and elevated by the powerhouse central performance of Stephen Graham. I am so impressed with the writing and execution of this character. It would have been easy to turn him into a very non-sympathetic caricature of the angry chef, but that's not what we get here. Yes, we get some profanity laced outbursts, but we also get heartfelt apologies and acknowledgements of his own responsibility. This is a man whose life is spiraling out of control and he knows exactly who is to blame: himself. This makes his interactions with his staff all the more tragic. Every time they are caught in the fallout of his mistakes he hates himself all the more. It's an effective portrait of someone who is desperately trying to be a good person, but addiction and self-sabotage are making that an impossible task.
My only critiques would perhaps be that the ending felt a little rushed and that the Alastair Sky storyline didn't feel quite as natural as everything else.
I did not expect much, and that's what I got. Neo and Trinity were mostly great, everything else was just horrible
The story was mostly ok, nothing special. Too many flashbacks.
The effects are worse than in the first Matrix from 22 years ago
The fight choreography is just bad, no feeling of impact anywhere
The crew feels like a bunch of drama students in matrix cosplay
Morpheus was changed into a joke, the character was completely destroyed
Smith is very creepy, the whole essence of the character is gone
The Analyst is totally miscast.
You would fear the agents in other movies, here they mean nothing.
The movie could have been easily cut down to 90 minutes without losing anything. Just bloated
The movie lacks style. When you see a scene from the Matrix or even the sequels, you can see and feel the overflowing of style.
There is nothing like that here. They lost it completely.
I feel like behind the first Matrix, there was a vision. Vision to make something new, unique. And they were successful. Here they also had a vision. A vision of quick easy money earned through nostalgia. Nothing else.
After a while, I actually started to wonder. Did the Watchkowskis really make the first Matrix? The difference in quality is just so huge here.
Only in the most vague way is this related to Train to Busan. This is a zombie movie based in South Korea set 4 years after the outbreak we saw in Train to Busan. I can admit that Seoul Station wasnt that good either, but at least they tried even with the choppy animation.
But here they go full ham on terrible, terrible CG and law-breaking physics. 4 years of disuse and the cars work, the roads are totally clear, there is electricity and functioning machinery. It just can't be.
This movie is clearly targeted towards fans of the original because there are some lines in English, awful awful cheesy dialogue that belittles the experience of living in a zombie infested wasteland and just contextually makes no sense at all.
And everyone in this movie is ugly and mentally insane. I liked Captain Seo, great character that makes sense, but Hwang is just bad to be bad. The military went full evil and now they're doing death matches. You also can't start a movie with heart wrenching scenes and expect us to care about the characters. Motivation for the main group also isn't really developed or explained and only really is justified by a flashback or singular line here and there.
All the English casting also makes no sense. I just can't understand why this film was made this way.
Large sections of the movies are completely in CG, they're actually awful and they look so bad. Skip this film, it just ain't worth it.
