28 Weeks Later (2007)

Did it feel good to make this film? I only ask because it was borderline painful to watch. I love the predecessor to this idiotic sequel. In fact, 28 Days Later is one of the better horror films ever made. I need to get around to watching it again, because it probably deserves a higher rating. After its international success, they just had to make a follow-up, no matter how complete the original may have been. The end result is a treat for splatter fans and a turn-off for those of us who were captivated by the intelligence of the original.

First we see a clip of a man struggling to barricade his home from an onslaught of the infected masses terrorizing the countryside. (For those who didn’t see the original, animal rights activists break into a research facility and let loose apes infected with a rage inhibitor that is passable to humans.) The man is unable to save his wife but he gets away in a boat on the river running behind their property. As the title suggests, we fast-forward to 28 weeks later. The man, Don (Robert Carlyle), is acting as caretaker in a secure colony in the heart of London.

The colony, being run by American and NATO forces, is slowly bringing people back to Britain in an attempt to rebuild. Don’s children, who were in Spain during the outbreak, join Don in the colony but their curiosity gets the best of them. They sneak out into the countryside to find their old house and retrieve a picture of their mother. Instead, they find their mother alive but a symptomless carrier of the virus. She is brought back to the colony by security forces for observation. Don uses his security clearances to meet with his wife but he becomes fully infected after kissing her. Don goes on a rampage, causing a swift-moving outbreak within the colony, threatening everyone.

Maybe I’m just too sensible and realistic but there are too many gaffes in this film to enjoy it. Critics liked it for the most part but I can’t figure out why. Anyone can shoot enough holes into 28 Weeks Later to render it more fit to be Swiss cheese than cinema. Let’s begin with the easy stuff:

What’s the most common problem with horror movies in general? Bad decisions. This film is rife with them. For starters, what sensible child would even think about attempting to sneak out of a secure compound just to find a picture of their mother? Secondly, why would security forces bring an infected individual into the heart of their secure colony? Do you expect me to believe there are no outlying facilities they could use for observation? Third but probably not lastly, I don’t care how much you love someone; if they are infected with a nation-crushing virus, keep your hands to yourself unless told otherwise!

A problem unique to horror sequels is the ill-conceived notion that you have to up the ante. More often than not, this escalation leads to a higher death toll, more violence and more gore. This appeases hard-core splatter fans because their insatiable thirst for blood-spilling, limb-removing carnage knows no end. For those of us who aren’t trying to build up a tolerance for gratuitous gore, 28 Weeks Later offers plenty of opportunities to ponder what kind of story elements could have been included had we not been subjected to every other infected human vomiting up blood. Perhaps a plot hole could have been filled in or characters defined better. Instead, we get zombie spew. Gee, thanks.

Part of the problem is that the filmmakers lose sight of what made 28 Days Later so riveting. It’s not the blood and guts but the human drama. If people want to see gratuitous violence, let them watch the latest Saw movie or some other torture-porn dreck. Don’t dilute an intelligent film with a populist sequel. What’s shocking is that many of the people involved with the first film helped produce this one. Maybe their quest for ‘bigger and badder’ clouded their eyes to the fact that their story wasn’t up to snuff.

I like the idea of using children in the sequel but they are used in the wrong way. In the first installment, there was a teenage girl as one of the supporting characters. She was innocent and thought like a rational human being. She was also used amidst the human drama of the film quite well. This time around, the two children are even younger and there is little threat to them beyond the infected. There’s a subconscious wiring in our brains that all but forces us to care about kids this young when they are put in danger but 28 Weeks Later left me feeling more manipulated than concerned. The kids are thrown from one perilous situation to another (sometimes via their own poor decisions) but it feels very paint-by-numbers.

The other big switch this time around is the theme of the film. Where the original was all about survival after the collapse of civilization, the sequel covers what the first film skipped over. I’m not sure watching the breakdown of society and seeing men and women turn on each other is as palatable as post-apocalyptic wandering. There’s more intrigue in seeing the aftermath and trying to imagine how things got the way they are. Seeing the world blow up before your eyes with no room for interpretation isn’t as engrossing. If they were trying to emphasize the fragility of building a society, it didn’t work. All I see is chaos being thrown at me.

There are some interesting things going on in the film but they are too few to make up for all the failed logic. The mutation of the virus to be transmittable by saliva is interesting but it was never explained by any scientists and it’s never brought up by anyone after Don goes berserk. His status as an infected person is different too. Unlike the mindless behavior exhibited in the first film, Don seems to retain some intellect and even plans some of his attacks. This also isn’t explained scientifically, which leaves you wondering if it is a mutation in the virus or just something the filmmakers thought would be ‘cool and scary.’

Naturally, the film closes with an open ending, paving the way for another possible sequel. The ending is a clear sign that the surviving characters made further bad decisions or were just plain irresponsible. There is promise in a story involving asymptomatic carriers of the virus and rebuilding society but 28 Weeks Later does not deliver anything close to it.

RATING: 1.75 out of 5

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

After the significant letdown that was The Matrix Reloaded, the Wachowski brothers returned with their band of misfit rebels less than a year later with this film. Serving as both a companion piece to Reloaded and as the conclusion to the series, The Matrix Revolutions is a slight improvement upon its immediate predecessor but contains many of the same flaws, keeping it well below the achievement of the original.

Picking up right where The Matrix Reloaded left off, Revolutions starts with Neo waking up in a weird sort of limbo program within the Matrix, though he is not plugged in. There he discovers that programs created by the Matrix have developed a sense of self worth and fear of being deactivated. The notion that artificial intelligence could develop ego is interesting (though not expressly unique to this story) but also kind of confusing at the same time.

When the Trainman refuses to grant passage to Neo, he is left stuck in limbo. Morpheus and Trinity enter the Matrix in order to rescue their friend so they can head back to Zion and join in the final battle. They once again must confront the Merovingian, who once again espouses acid-tongued philosophy that, while pertinent to the events of the film and really smart concepts, viewers will probably want to ignore. I finally realized that the Merovingian, for all the good he is for presenting hard-hitting philosophy is his own (and the Wachowski’s) undoing. Where the Oracle speaks in vague terms, the Merovingian speaks in terms of absolutes and finite concepts. The difference is in their personality. The Oracle is frustrating but she’s so nice you can’t help but trust her. The Merovingian is pretty much right, but he’s easily dismissed because he is an egomaniacal jerk.

This highlights an interesting turn of events in the Matrix series. Where the first film makes you think, question everything and look for truth, Revolutions seems to stand that on its head, favoring faith over knowledge instead. It’s a 180 that is hard to reckon with, because most of what people have had faith in during the series (prophecy and ideas) turns out to be a bunch of hooey in the end. Where the first film spent the entire time highlighting Neo’s uniqueness, Reloaded tore him back down with the revelation that there have been multiple Ones and they are in fact a component of the Architect’s original design. The end of Reloaded and parts of Revolutions seem to try and build Neo’s hero mythology back up, but there’s just as much pulling him back down in our minds at the same time. It’s unclear if the filmmakers are intentionally trying to create this ambiguous buffer for themselves or the varying tastes of viewers, which leaves the overall resolution of faith vs. reason frustratingly unclear.

Neo is freed and visits the Oracle one last time. Her appearance has changed because the actress that had played the Oracle in the first two films died suddenly before filming began on the third. The Wachowski’s tried write in some kind of philosophical causality reason behind the change of her appearance in Revolutions, but it just seems like a silly excuse to try and make us think that every flaw in the films can be rationalized. The Oracle’s last message to Neo is that he must go to the Machine City. When Neo leaves the Matrix, our heroes go their separate ways. Morpheus heads back to defend Zion while Neo and Trinity. Unbeknownst to Neo, however, is that Bane- the Smith-infused human- snuck aboard the ship Neo and Trinity are taking to the Machine City.

Here the movie delves into two and a half high tension action sequences. Morpheus franticly attempts to get back to Zion with the help of another ship (and his former lover) by navigating the labyrinthine service tunnels that seem to be everywhere and were never really explained at all during any of the films. Meanwhile, the Machines break through Zion’s security and unleash a spectacular assault on the last homestead of free humanity. Both of these scenes rely on extensive amounts of CGI. Some of it is good, while a fair amount of it is not. The chase through the service tunnels looks better because everything is moving faster and it’s very dark.

The battle at Zion isn’t as impressive as it should be because the thousands of robotic sentinels look good as one massive group soaring down upon their prey, but when viewed individually, they lack that realistic look the filmmakers were going for. They just move too fast and intricately to believe. Plus, it’s very easy to spot a scene composed entirely of CGI. The humans fighting the machines have their moments of ridiculousness as well. Ironically, they use mechanized war suits to fire thousands of rounds of heavy ammunition at the sentinels, but when these war suits are seen from a distance as CGI creations, I got the feeling that I was watching an incredibly violent video game instead of a movie. Equally ironic is the fact that the freedom that Zion fights for is in fact just a ploy by the Machines to make it seem like humanity still has a chance. Why the Machines haven’t eliminated Zion completely during the last five iterations of the Matrix is beyond me and the filmmakers didn’t feel the need to explain it either.

Neo does his fair share of fighting as well. Attacked and blinded by Bane aboard the ship, Neo uses his powers that now exist outside the Matrix as well to dispatch this Smith incarnate. As he and Trinity near the Machine City, the Machines do their darndest to destroy them. Neo blocks the bombs and rockets as much as he can but tells Trinity to fly up as high as the ship can take them. They break through the clouds and Trinity sees the light of the Sun for the first time. Ironically, Neo is unable to see this light. They plunge back into the clouds and down into the city itself. Interestingly, Trinity, who can see the light is crashing to her doom. Neo, on the other hand, could not see the light and is crashing towards his fate as well. The light he sees is the Machine City, which he enters, heading towards his doom.

The grand finale of The Matrix Revolutions is a winner-take-all duel between Neo and Smith, who has seemingly replicated himself into all the humans attached to the Matrix. The battle of Zion pauses while Neo fights. Morpheus, in a rare moment of naïveté, assumes Neo is fighting for humanity. In fact, Neo fights for the people of Zion and for the Machines, as Smith now poses a threat to the Matrix and the Machine City itself. It’s amusing that as advanced the Machines are, they managed to be no better than humans by creating something that is capable of destroying themselves. The battle itself is bloated and drags on far too long and Smith rants insanely about destiny and why Neo feels the need to continue. There is some bad CGI on display as well, particularly when the two take their battle to the sky. Seriously? A flying fight? It was silly and served no purpose other than to show of special effects that were anything but. In the end, just as Neo defeated Smith in the real world, Smith gets to defeat Neo in the computer world. Neo allows himself to be assimilated, which somehow allows the Matrix to destroy Smith. I understand the whole balancing of the equation bit, but I never really grasped the mechanics of how or why the Machines could only destroy Smith through Neo.

Despite all the flaws, I liked the resolution The Matrix Revolutions gives us. The war ends and an era of peace and understanding is ushered in. Of course, all of this is underscored by a large question mark. How long will the peace last? At what point will the people of Zion rise up against the Machines and receive the next One? Many were frustrated by this seemingly neat and tidy yet ambiguous ending, but I was satisfied with it. Story lines were finished, though some not as well as others, and the central conflict was resolved. It’s still a little absurd to imagine that all of this took place in 3 days time, but it works. It also shows, as all the philosophical espousing implied, that the end of this conflict is not the end of the story. The lives of these characters go on, but we’re not to be privy to what comes next. People complained of losing two of the series main characters, but with all the comparisons and allusions to Neo as a Jesus figure, how could you not see it coming? The Matrix Revolutions brings the saga to a close with a whimper instead of a bang. It may not be the most pleasing way to end it all, but it’s exactly what the series needed.

RATING: 3 out of 5

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

After 1999’s enormously successful The Matrix captivated audiences, reinvigorated deep-thinking science fiction, and introduced the world to new levels of computer and special effects and filmmaking techniques, talk of a sequel was inevitable. Many wondered if or how the Wachowski brothers could pull off such a feat. Four years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, we got a chance to find out.

Instead of just one sequel, the Wachowski brothers promised us two sequels- to be filmed at the same time- creating a Matrix trilogy. The Matrix Reloaded was released in May of 2003 and was followed by the third and final installment that November. This, the first of the sequels turned out to be an interesting mix of too little and too much too late.

The overarching story of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions is that the Machines have formed a vast army and are drilling their way deep into the earth to launch an attack on Zion, the last free human settlement on earth. After Morpheus and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar meet up with the captains and crews of other ships in Zion’s fleet, they learn that, at the rate the machines are digging, Zion will be reached in no more than 72 hours.

The crews all return to Zion, where Morpheus discusses strategy with Zion’s security minister and a council of elders. The council allows Morpheus to take his ship outside the safety of Zion so Neo may contact the Oracle. Before they depart, the people of Zion decide to have one final party before the machines bear down upon them. It’s a very awkward scene with a lot of slow motion and a lot of sweaty bodies heaving back and forth. All the while, Neo and Trinity make love, which is equally awkward because their bodies are covered with the plugs and sockets that once connected them to the Matrix.

Neo and company head out and he meets with the Oracle. They have a deep discussion that delves into some weighty philosophical matters and it is learned that instead of a renegade person hooked up to the Matrix, the Oracle is in fact a program created by the Matrix. It sort of helps to explain why the Matrix doesn’t just kill her off, but it also complicates things and is a splash of foreshadowing. The Oracle tells Neo that he must return to The Source by finding the Keymaker and she leaves him.

At this point, The Matrix Reloaded becomes little more than a chase caper. Neo and his friends find themselves in the middle of action sequence after action sequence designed to show off the camera tricks, special effects and wire work that wowed us all in the original film. There’s Neo fighting about 100 Smith’s; Neo, Morpheus and Trinity taking on the Merovingian and his lackeys in an ornate palace, which leads into an insufferably long highway chase; and finally an assault upon a power plant and Neo’s attempt to break into The Source with the Keymaker.

These scenes include all sorts of high-flying action, guns blazing, stuff blowing up and people getting shot up, impaled or blown to bits that the fanboy and young male audiences were craving. The problem is that there isn’t a lot to these action sequences that are new. There’s no new technology or innovative camera techniques being deployed. All we end up with is even more of the same super slow-mo “bullet time” that the original introduced us to. Another chief problem is that these sequences really on a tremendous amount of computer generated effects, many of which simply look fake. In the years between production of the first Matrix film and its sequels, CGI improved a lot, but not nearly enough to the point that this film needed it to.

Interspersed between, throughout, and bookending these high octane sequences are the Wachowski brothers attempts to inject a little substance into their chase caper. Unfortunately, these attempts surface as short bursts of heavy duty philosophical banter that is likely to either go way over the viewer’s head, frustrating them by making them feel dumb, or bore them to death before the next action scene. Sometimes both. These exchanges are often times amusing and frustrating at the same time because they come either before or during exchanges of violence, making the whole fight seem absurd. Why delay kicking the crap out each other to talk Jung and Freud? It’s illogical, but the actions and exchanges go by so fast that most people probably won’t notice. If you can wrap your head around the weighty material though, it’s good stuff, but a few blasts of intellectualism can’t make up for a bloated half-film that’s candy-coated in excess.

There were several things I liked about The Matrix Reloaded. Obviously, the fight scenes and martial arts displays were well choreographed and incredibly intricate. The philosophical content was appreciable, but as I said before, it actually comes off as a bit insulting that the filmmakers thought what little substance and advancement of story there was would be enough. I was amused by Neo’s confrontation with the Architect at The Source. The Architect claims to have built the Matrix and monitors it from a massive bank of TV screens. It was actually a unique 21st Century and beyond depiction of God- the omniscient, bearded, white-haired old man who is the creator of all reality. It was also interesting how Neo defies him much in the same way that Man defies God in real life. Too bad the Architect came across as a pretentious intellectual blowhard. Finally, The Matrix Reloaded never stopped projecting a message of hope. Even in the darkest of times, people still had hope that the evils confronting them could be overcome. Sometimes it was a false sense of hope, but when your protagonists are trying to prevent their annihilation, can you really complain about false hope?

I think the biggest fault of the film, however, is the ending. Created as the first half of a two-part follow-up, The Matrix Reloaded does very little to make itself stand alone as a film. It leaves too much dangling and dependent upon the third film to create a whopping resolution. The Nebuchadnezzar is attacked by the Machines but Neo miraculously defends himself and his friends from the assault in the real world. Neo is left in a coma, Smith has managed to transfer himself into the real world by assimilating himself into the body of another crew member, and the Machines are swiftly approaching Zion. While I understand the concept of contiguous sequels, you still need make each one its own living and breathing entity. The Matrix Reloaded left me feeling like I had just watched one half of a very unbalanced equation.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5