An exploration of the musical biopic genre + Elvis Review

Warner Bros.' "Elvis"

One of the current popular trends in Hollywood is that of the musical biopic. It seems like everyone who has been influential in the music industry is getting their turn in the spotlight and so naturally it only makes sense that the king himself is the next in line. One might wonder why this hasn’t been done before. Well, it has. Kinda. Movies with Elvis Presley as a character in them do exist, but perhaps not to this scale where he is the focal point of his own musical biopic. Like most human beings who exist on Earth, I would certainly consider myself an Elvis fan. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t at least like a song or two from him, I would think. So this seems like a winning formula, right?

Well, not so fast. Not for me, anyways. Sure, it’s Elvis Presley. I love his music. He certainly had a life and a career that’s worth diving into and learning about. And it’s directed by Baz Luhrmann, who often only does a feature length movie once every five years or so. His entire feature length filmography (so not counting short films, TV, music videos, or anything like that) is “Strictly Ballroom” (1992), “Romeo + Juliet” (1996), “Moulin Rouge!” (2001), “Australia” (2008), “The Great Gatsby” (2013), and now “Elvis” (2022). 30 years. 6 movies. An average of 5.8 years in between each. So when he shows up, I think it’s worth paying attention to at the very least, especially considering some of those on the list.

So what’s the hesitation on my part?

Well… it’s the genre.

Honestly, I wasn’t planning on doing any sort of deep dive into this. I’ve been a tad bit behind on some of the films I’ve seen recently. And as you may have noticed, I’ve been selective of which movies get their own review on this blog. For the most part I’ve been doing shorter “mini reviews” on Facebook and other social media. I have reasons for this that are not worth diving into at this current time. But when I finally caught up with “Elvis” this past week and gave myself time to ponder over it, I realized this required more than just a quick Facebook post. Especially considering the response. Certified fresh from critics at 78 percent, a 94 percent Rotten Tomatoes audience score, and a 7.8 on IMDb. Clearly there is plenty of enjoyment of this film going on. And I’ll be straight up right up front here and say that I was not one of them. Yet the reasons for that go slightly beyond the individual points of this one film. As I’ve said, the musical biopic genre as a whole is one that I’ve been growing more and more frustrated with and I think my dislike of “Elvis” requires a tad bit of context in that regard.

I say that this is a popular trend in Hollywood right now. But it’s certainly not a new one. Musical biopics have been around for quite some time. There’s just been a heavy uptick of late that probably has everything to do with “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2018 earning $886.9 million worldwide and scoring 5 Oscar nominations, which included best picture. It won four of those, all but the best picture. Since Hollywood is a copycat business, many filmmakers have desperately been trying to cash in on that trend. And it seems to me that quantity is the theme here rather than quality. Filmmakers taking big names in the music world and throwing together a biopic of them without taking much time to figure out what makes a good musical biopic. And I feel that there’s also a bit of a backwards train of thought in determining who gets the next one. Instead of finding a musician with a good story to tell that would fit nicely into a Hollywood movie, it feels like they’re going down the checklist of popular bands or artists based solely on popularity and starting production on their biopic without thinking twice about what the focus is going to be about or what story they’re planning to tell.

20th Century Fox's "Bohemian Rhapsody"

The result of this is a long string of musical biopics that I honestly haven’t cared for. And a handful I haven’t even bothered to see. In fact, I came close to just not watching “Elvis,” but did so because my options at the moment weren’t very plentiful as I’d seen all the major blockbusters dominating the screens right now.

The other thing that has bothered me is that a lot of these movies seem to have learned the wrong lessons from “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which to me is a textbook example of how to NOT make a musical biopic. Yet because it became so popular, filmmakers have started to read and copy from this erroneous textbook, which has seemingly caused things to spiral out of control in regards to degrading quality in a genre that I’m not so sure Hollywood ever figured out how to properly do in the first place. The good ones seem to be more of an accidental success than anything else. In fact, to this point of Hollywood never really figuring this out, there was a movie in 2007 called “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” which is a fictional parody of the musical biopic genre. While it wasn’t a resounding success upon initial release, some film circles have really gone back to this movie to the point where they feel this movie should’ve ended the musical biopic genre. Or at least caused Hollywood to learn from it. But instead of paying attention to the things that “Walk Hard” directly made fun of and attempting to change and be different, many musical biopics that followed have continued to do the exact same things, which is a bit bewildering in my mind.

So what exactly makes a good musical biopic?

Well, the correct answer is that there’s no right or wrong way of doing it. And if certain movies like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis” are extremely well-liked and very successful, then who am I to say that they’re doing things the wrong way. Movies are an art form and like all art, it’s 100 percent subjective. Different people can like different things and that’s OK.

But if you want my opinion on what I think makes a good musical biopic, then I suppose that’s why you clicked on this and are continuing to read. So let’s carry on.

This might sound a bit vague, but in my opinion the best musical biopics are the ones that latch onto a specific theme. There is a specific lesson to be learned that drives the narrative. And this leads to a story that feels very natural in movie form where the character arcs and plot are the strengths. These are typically films where the filmmakers saw a story from a person’s life that they wanted to tell rather than picking a popular character and figuring out how to make a movie about their life.

These are, of course, generalities in what I prefer. Things have to be taken on a case by case situation and sometimes there’s a movie that breaks the mold to what I expect that causes me enjoyment despite it not following what I want it to follow. But for the most part these are what I go in hoping or expecting out of a musical biopic and if it doesn’t feel like it is focusing on the right angles of the biopic, then it becomes easy for me to get frustrated.

One other thing that is also important to me in regards to biopics as a whole, musical or not, is accuracy. I get that most movies based on true stories often have to take certain creative liberties in order to make the movie work, but I prefer a biopic to be educational. If you’re going to make a movie about someone, I enjoy the experience of learning about that person. Some will give me pushback to that and argue that a movie’s purpose is to entertain, not to educate. Because of that, they don’t mind if the movie is completely fictional as long as the story told was one that they enjoyed. To each their own, I suppose, but it personally drives me bonkers when I put my educational hat on only to learn later on that the history lesson that was taught to me came from the figments of someone’s imagination rather than the actual historical facts. If a person’s life doesn’t follow the story that you want to tell, then find a story that does fit your narrative. Or simply create a fictional movie that tells your story. Don’t fictionalize someone’s real life in order to create your own story that you wanted to tell.

Again, I get the idea of taking certain creative liberties in order to make things work. And sometimes you have to combine events or do other things like that, but at the very least you should have the spirit of things correct in a way that accurate honors a person’s life.

Columbia Pictures' "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story"

What not to do in a musical biopic?

If you take these thoughts and connect the dots here to what I’m getting at, I honestly don’t care for musical biopics that have no real focus or theme to them. Biopics that feel like generic highlight reels of someone’s life without an interesting story to follow are often movies that I get bored with. Granted, I love myself a good slice of life type of movie. But even those - often fictional - slice of life movies have a specific purpose to them or wrap things up in a way that ties things together. If you go from Point A to Point B to Point C to Point D in an aimless fashion and nothing really ties together in an interesting way, most of the time you’ll have successfully lost me back around Point B. If I’m wondering where this is going and I never get an answer to that question, then I’ll leave confused and unsatisfied at the experience.

If you have no theme or no point to your movie, then most of the time I’ll leave wondering what the purpose of the whole thing was. Give me a reason to care or give me a take home thought for me to ponder on. Don’t just blindly guide me through a random series of events. Tie it all together in some way.

And in a very specific critique towards the musical biopic, I really don’t care too much for what I call random concert films. That being a movie about a band or an artist and the whole thing is just going from song to song to song without any connective tissue between the songs. Yes, if I like the band or the singer, I’m going to enjoy it when I hear it performed, assuming the actor does a good job performing the piece, but the songs should be there to enhance the experience, not be the sole attraction. I can open my Apple Music app and listen to songs from my favorite singers. If I want to go to a concert, I can purchase those tickets when the band is in town or search for a previously recorded concert online if it exists. But if I’m going to a musical biopic, I want it to be more than just the movie aimlessly bouncing from song to song that an actor is singing and performing.

And for crying out loud, don’t tell a fictional version of a real person’s life. If I come home and realize that the movie was completely off in left field when it comes to telling a person’s story, that might be the one thing that drives me up the wall.

And finally, if your movie hits every point that the aforementioned “Walk Hard” movie hits, then I personally don’t think you made your movie in a very good, especially if there’s no sense of genuine emotion. I get that you can take a familiar premise and turn it into a solid movie if you show that you really care about the subject matter and the execution is done well, but if every musical biopic is the same movie with different central characters, can you maybe understand why that can be tiresome in 2022? And if you combined those last two points, meaning you fictionalized someone’s life in order to fit them into a generic biopic film that hits all the cliché beats, that’s obviously a whole lot worse.

Tom Hanks in "Elvis"

If you came here for the “Elvis” review, I hope you don’t mind that you walked into an essay about what makes a good musical biopic in my eyes. If you made it this far into the review, I hope you at least found all of this informative and can use it to understand my vantage point when it comes to this.

Because “Elvis” did just about none of these things in the way that I wanted. I’m not saying it hit every egregious point that I just brought up, but it ran right through most of them.

That’s the short review. A complete swing and a miss on almost every bullet point. Use that as your pull quote from this review if you want.

The longer version of the review?

Well, first and foremost I think it’s important to point out what this movie actually did a good job at. And that’s Austin Butler as Elvis. This is a guy that’s been around a bit. His most notable role of late was that of Tex Watson in “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.” But this will absolutely be known as his major breakout role that should launch him into stardom. And this is a perfect example as to why casting directors should cast actors who fit the part rather than going for the big name just to get attention that way. Because you can find people like Austin Butler that can nail the part to perfection. He looks like Elvis. He sounds like Elvis. And he gets Elvis’s mannerisms down to perfection, including his classic hip movements that all the girls back in the day swooned over. And I don’t know exactly how the singing went down in this movie, but the individual Elvis performances where quite electric and absolutely on point. I don’t know if it was Butler doing the singing or if he was just expertly lip-synching, but whatever was done the movie pulled that off quite well.

But the No. 1 rule here that should be the most obvious point ever is that if you’re going to make an Elvis movie that is even called “Elvis,” then for crying out loud make the movie about Elvis. I was rather shocked to realize that Elvis felt almost like a side character in his own movie. Just about the entire focus of the movie was on a character they called “The Colonel.” Colonel Tom Parker is his full name, but I don’t know if they used Tom Parker much. This guy was Elvis’s manager. He’s narrating the film for most of it. He’s the focus. It’s about him finding Elvis and him dealing with Elvis’s unprecedented stardom and him trying to take full control of his musical career and him apparently being super shady in many ways, most notably keeping a large portion of the money for himself.

And I honestly did not care for any of that. The Colonel is played by Tom Hanks. And man alive, I have no idea what Baz was telling Tom Hanks to do, but it was just absolutely not working for me in any way, shape, or form. Tom Hanks is one of the best actors working today and I don’t know if I’ve seen a film where I thought he was bad in the movie. Not every movie of his has been perfect, but usually I can at least say that he did a good job in the movie, even if the movie around him was bad. And occasionally you might say that he is miscast in a certain role, but I honestly think that this might be my least favorite performance of his career. And I get that he was supposed to be ridiculous and annoying. He was portraying a character who is almost the antagonist of the movie in many ways. But every time he showed up on the screen, I wanted him gone. And it became increasingly frustrating that he refused to go away and pretty much had the movie to himself instead of letting Austin Butler do the heavy lifting.

I’m certainly not the Elvis expert here, but I don’t know if I even learned anything about Elvis. And I know that he had enough of a complex life for a really good educational story about him to be told, but none of that was really told. We just watched Elvis the whole time through the eyes of this really annoying manager character called the Colonel. To the point where I think they could’ve called the movie “The Colonel” instead of “Elvis.”

Covering the next major issue here, outside the “Elvis had a bad manager” angle of the movie, this is another musical biopic that seemed to just jump from song to song and from one moment of Elvis’s career to the next. But it didn’t really dive too deeply into his backstory, his upbringing, or explore his personal life too heavily. It just felt like we were going from one Elvis song to the next Elvis song while shoving down our throat that he had a bad manager in between songs. We ultimately cover 20 years of time, but rarely did I feel the transitions to each portion of his life had much of a purpose to it outside a mere obligation that the movie felt like touching on everything that he did in those 20 years before his death in 1977. And even then, we covered so much ground that most of the historical points felt like they were just lightly brushed on rather than focusing on a few key points. And again, outside “Elvis had a bad manager,” I don’t know what points I was supposed to take away from this movie. I could probably come up with some things that one could focus around in an Elvis biopic, but I don’t really feel that any of that stood out to me.

Austin Butler in "Elvis"

And if you got more out of this than I did, then I will be honest and say it’s probably because the movie is so freaking long that my attention span wandered out the door around halfway through. I will confess that my brain power was minimal going into the movie and I mistakenly went into a 10:20 p.m. without looking at the run time. But I’ve had movie experiences with low brain power where the movie captivated me so much that it energized me and I haven’t cared or noticed that it was super late. I went into this particular movie thinking I would probably get done not too long after midnight. When it finally ended, I was partially convinced that it would be dawn outside and I could immediately drive to work. Turns out it was just 1:30 a.m., but that wasn’t that much more comforting. That included your typical commercials and trailers, but the official runtime was 2 hours 39 minutes, or 159 minutes. And that is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no reason an Elvis biopic needed to be much longer than 100 or 120 minutes. Getting to 159 minutes feels inexcusable, especially with a movie that had so little to say.

I’d say that Baz Luhrmann forgot how to edit in his eight years since his last movie, but a more accurate statement would be that he forgot how to properly shorten a movie down to the length that it needed to be. Because there’s definitely a lot of editing going on. This is extremely flashy, upbeat, and a bit chaotic. Baz was definitely not interested in making this feel like a traditional biopic on a visual spectrum. Transitions from scene to scene are also this way. In many ways this is a compliment to the film. It gave it a unique flare to it that very much made it feel like a Baz Luhrmann film. But I’ll be honest and say that after a bit of this I was begging Baz to slow the thing down a bit. Give me some time to breathe a bit.

Maybe this is a movie that I need to revisit at some point. It was loud and chaotic. It was extremely long. And very little of the movie did anything to interest me. Given that I was already tired going it, and it was a late showing, this was all an extremely bad combination of events. There’s just nothing here that incentivizes me to return to this, especially when there’s always a whole lot of other things to catch up on.

And you know what, given that it’s taken me a few days to even get this post out into the world after seeing the movie, I can already feel this movie simply disappearing from my brain. Unless I get some sort of major backlash from people who loved the movie, which I honestly don’t anticipate happening, this might be a thing that I completely forget about in record time. And that’s almost the worst type of movie.

If you loved this movie, then that’s fantastic. If you’re curious enough about it, then check it out. It’s not a movie whose existence offends me. And if what you like from musical biopics goes completely the opposite way of what I’ve outlined in this post, that’s cool, too. I just hope you can understand where I’m coming from and accept that this was not the movie for me. The only thing that’ll make me mad is if you say that, “Well, you’re just not a fan of Elvis so you didn’t appreciate the movie like I did.” That’ll earn you a virtual slap in the face. People said that to me about Queen when I hated the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody” and it couldn’t be further from the truth. I love Queen. I love Elvis Presley. Hated “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Didn’t care for “Elvis.” That’s all. I hope we can still be friends.

Grade: 5/10

West Side Story Review (1961 & 2021) (SPOILERS)

The Oscars are this weekend and I definitely have my major Oscars post coming soon, but before we do that I need to get my thoughts out on one of the nominees for best picture, that of “West Side Story.” This is a movie that I saw and enjoyed in theaters back in December, but I left with questions. Questions that revolved around me not having done my homework before going into the movie, meaning I had not seen the original 1961 movie that this was a remake of. A rather egregious oversight for someone like myself, but such is life sometimes. I have now rectified that wrong, spending a lot more time than I was planning on both movies, in order to nail down these thoughts in my brain.

Word of caution. This might come with some unpopular takes. Also word of caution. I will dive into spoilers for a 50-year-old movie, if you’re weird like me and haven’t seen it. Naturally there will also be spoilers for the three-month-old remake, which is slightly more of a serious warning. But for most people, there’s not a whole lot to spoil, all things considered. Just got to cover my bases here. And yeah, this is a double review with my thoughts on both movies intertwined together because that’s key to my overall thoughts. 

First off, I want to focus on the good behind both movies. Because this is a classic production for a reason. From a certain and understandable point of view, one might say that the most important part of a musical is the musical of it all. And there are few musicals out there that are more classic and more iconic than “West Side Story.” To the point where one like me watching for the first time at the end of last year might perk up and say, “Wait a minute, I know all of this music!” I think it speaks volumes about a musical that it is so ingrained in the culture that I knew the music very well without having seen the actual movie. Usually it takes me a bit to soak in a new musical and truly appreciate the songs in it. But in this case, I knew and loved the music already. It certainly didn’t feel like I was watching something for the first time. 

And certainly the credit for this goes to Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein, who wrote the lyrics and music to the 1957 Broadway musical that debuted four years before the movie was released. I’m not a huge musical buff, but even I’m well aware Stephen Sondheim and it’s incredibly impressive when I look at all of his work and see how much of a master at his craft he was. His list of iconic music that he wrote for so many musicals is very long and very impressive. Every musical number in “West Side Story” is very good. The songs are very catchy. There’s a good variety to them. Their flow and placement in the production is well balanced. And to the movie’s credit, the original movie was very well cast in terms of getting talent on board who could sing these numbers in an impressive way, whether it be the actors themselves or vocal doubles who did the singing parts, which is certainly something I would be in favor of going back to. If you must have a certain actor playing the part, I would rather cast someone else to do the singing rather than trying to teach the non-singer how to sing. 

And to go along with the impressive singing in the movie, the dance choreography is very impressive. Every number is both entertaining and awe-inspiring.

“But Adam, are you talking about the 1961 movie or the 2021 movie when you are praising the music and dance?”

Yes. Both. Because both movies do an incredible job at this. However, if we’re comparing the two, one thing that I was especially impressed with when I went back and watched both movies is that this new movie takes what the original provided and improved on it. And that was one of the questions that I had after initially watching the new movie in theaters that was answered in a very positive way when I went back to do my homework on this. I was sufficiently thrilled and entertained by it all, but was it a necessary remake? And yeah, it was. The dance and choreography in Spielberg’s remake was a whole lot more breathtaking. The original was still very well done, but the sets felt more restricted. It had the feel of a stage production that was filmed, making it slightly less cinematic. And maybe that’s due to the restrictions of its time. But Spielberg definitely took advantage of the modern technology to make his version feel grand and epic. He makes use of the entire city rather than having a group of people dancing on a stage. And that’s what should happen in movie musicals. If I’m watching a stage production, I can suspend disbelief a bit. But if I’m watching a movie, it shouldn’t feel like I’m watching a stage production, if that makes sense. If you have the technology and ability to make your movie feel cinematic, take advantage of that.

Also to Spielberg’s credit, his movie is much improved when it comes to actual representation. Now back in 1961, perhaps there were different standards and different expectations, but very few people in that movie are actually Puerto Rican. Some are. But most are Americans playing Puerto Ricans, including our lead actress Natalie Wood, who plays Maria. And even among those few that are Puerto Rican, there’s a bit of a cringey practice they used that we call “brownfacing.” Rita Moreno, who plays Anita in the film, talked about how they put makeup on her to make her appear more brown so that she “looks” Puerto Rican. And she was one of the few who was actually Puerto Rican, so it was extremely unnecessary.

Again, maybe back in 1961 that wasn’t an issue in people’s minds. But definitely looking back in hindsight, that’s a major problem. And so it’s very nice to see new movie be authentic by casting actors who either are Puerto Rican, are of Puerto Rican descent, or at the very least are Latino. Wikipedia tells me that Rachel Zegler, who plays Maria, is of Colombian descent. Which is certainly better than Natalie Wood, an American born to Russian immigrant parents. Representation matters and the new movie deserves credit for proper representation. It even caters to the Spanish audience with some Spanish dialogue mixed in… without subtitles translating into English. We even turned on subtitles when I was watching with friends last night and when they were speaking Spanish, it said “(Speaking Spanish)” instead of telling us what they were saying. And I applauded that. I can infer based on context what was being said while appreciating the fact that the movie was geared to Puerto Ricans in more ways than one.

So yeah, with all of this said, I can genuinely say that Steven Spielberg took a classic, beloved film, one that was a winner of 10 Oscars, including best picture, and made a better version of it with quality representation, music that matches the quality of the original, and dance numbers that are more impressive and more cinematic.

The issues here comes with plot. And this is where sometimes hardcore musical fans sometimes get really upset at my analysis. It seems to me that many of them can be perfectly satisfied with excellent music and dance without caring too much about what’s happening with the plot. I care about both. And there are plenty of examples, even from movie musicals last year like “tick, tick… BOOM!” and “In the Heights,” that had a wonderful combination of great music and great plot. “West Side Story” falls quite a bit short on the plot category of things.

Specifically the issue comes with the lead romance. It’s bad. In both movies. I watched the new movie in December and loved most of it, but was concerned with the fact that there was absolutely no chemistry between Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. One of the worst on screen romances that I can remember. And it’s unfortunate because I love both of them individually. At least in regards to their acting performances. Both do their character justice and both of them can sing. But they just aren’t a very interesting couple and it makes the drama that happens between them really rocky and borderline cringey.

I thought maybe that this was a new movie problem. Maybe they got everything right in the new movie, but just happened to cast two leads that didn’t work together very well. And maybe that would be a ding on this one compared to the original. But nope. In the original movie, the lead couple of Tony and Maria are as equally uninteresting. Maybe they have a tad bit more chemistry, but not by a lot.

Now I know the opposing point of view to this. And it’s a valid argument. This story is a direct adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet,” a story that is centered around a doomed and rushed teen romance. One could say that story is tragic BECAUSE the romance isn’t great. Two kids from opposite factions of a war or a dispute falling in love in reckless fashion that’s more of a doomed infatuation rather than an honest love and built-up romance. And the forbidden love of it all makes them more reckless because no one wants them to fall in love, but they don’t care and start actively rebelling against their families’ wishes. Perhaps the real morals and themes behind it is not about the love and romance at all, but is more of a look on racism and the perhaps frustrating nature of people hating each other for no good reason and how that unjustified hatred and anger can lead to very unfortunate consequences that neither side intended.

To that point, “West Side Story” does a very good job of a painting a very dreary picture of how warring factions can destroy a happy society. There’s no reason for the Americans and the Puerto Ricans to hate each other so much, but the reckless nature of the gang violence leads heartbreak, death and murder. And again, to the new movie’s credit, Spielberg does a really good job of diving even deeper into characters like Tony and Riff, giving them extra depth and background that makes the movie’s finale even that much more tragic.

But still, I have a really hard time overlooking the fact that the romance is very cheesy and ridiculous. While I had not seen “West Side Story,” I am quite familiar with “Romeo and Juliet” and it’s made adaptations and various movies that are influenced by it. And I’ve seen many movies that follow the exact outline, yet still accomplish the themes of the story while portraying a romantic arc that is believable. My two quick examples out of many are “Titanic” and “Warm Bodies.” Both are inspired by “Romeo and Juliet.” “Warm Bodies” is even a direct parody of it. In “Titanic,” Jack and Rose have immediate chemistry and are a couple that I root for the whole movie. In “Warm Bodies,” even though it’s silly and comedic, there’s still a connection between R and Julie (note the unashamed parody, even in the names?). In the new “West Side Story,” Tony and Marie are making out behind the bleachers within seconds of meeting each other and are both talking about marriage the next day. And if I thought that was cheesy enough, the old movie is a whole lot worse with how they meet. Still at the dance, but I laughed out loud when they connected eyes and the whole room moved aside so that they could embrace and start kissing.

In the new movie, the next day Tony is asking Valentina, Rita Moreno’s character in the new film, how to say certain phrases in Spanish and she starts questioning him as to why he’s rushing into it. “Don’t you want to ask her out to coffee first?” And yes, everyone watching is on her side with how silly this whole thing is. And to fast forward to the end of the movie, Tony kills Maria’s brother, then immediately goes to Maria and that’s the moment they first make love in the movie. Seconds after he breaks the news to her that he just killed her brother. I don’t care who you are or what world you’re in, there is no situation where I believe it is the least bit realistic for you to immediately sleep with the guy seconds after learning he just killed your brother, especially when it’s a guy you just barely met for the first time 24 hours previously.

And such nonsense in both movies makes the tragedy of it all less impactful. If there was some way to fix the lead romance to make it seem realistic, then the ending of the two gangs just not being able to mend their hatred would really hit home and you would leave with heavy emotions after the deaths of Riff, Bernard, and Tony. But the cheesiness of it all makes the final act of the movie crash and burn in a way that’s more recklessly written than the rushed romance itself.

I don’t know exactly what Spielberg could’ve done to fix this in his movie, but he took a very flawed story and recreated the same issues. He made the movie more cinematic. He made the musical numbers more grand and epic. He gave Puerto Ricans some real representation. And all of that deserves to be applauded. But what he also did is take a badly written romance story and made it even worse. Maybe how it was initially written works for a 1961 movie. There’s a lot of old-fashioned, classic films where characters go from strangers to madly in love in record time, many of which skip the whole courting process altogether. And it was fine for its time. But if that was the acceptable thing in old movies, then doing a cut and paste for 2021 might not be the best idea. I think even small things like stretching the plot out for a few weeks or a month could’ve gone a long way into making it more believable. Like I’ve pointed out, “Romeo and Juliet” HAS been done in ways that make it more believable while still keeping the tragedy and the core of the story and themes in place. “West Side Story” is just not one of those adaptations where the romance works for me and I do think it cuts into the impact of the resolution.

And that is why I leave feeling a bit conflicted about the whole thing. If I focus just on the music and the dance, then the original film is incredible and classic. And it’s even more impressive that Spielberg made the better version of that. But what am I supposed to do when other elements of both movies are so bad that it’s entertaining to make fun of them with a group of people? “So bad it’s good” is not the label that belongs anywhere near an iconic musical, which is why I can’t give either a full pass.

As I said, in terms of movie musicals from 2021, both “tick, tick… BOOM!” and “In the Heights” are superior films than “West Side Story,” even if “West Side Story” has the edge on both when it comes to the actual music. Make of that what you will.

The Batman Review

It’s been a very Batman-heavy week on this blog. First I ranked all the theatrically-released Batman movies. Then I did my March movie preview, which was essentially previewing how well “The Batman” was going to do as it is one of the only broadly-appealing March releases. If you’re curious, $134 million was the correct answer on that in terms of its opening weekend. It opened lower than “The Dark Knight,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Batman v. Superman,” all of which opened to around $160 million, but still an excellent number all things considered. And with no competition all month, it has a great chance of holding well very well in the coming weeks. But anyways, now we are topping this off with the post you’ve all been waiting for, my actual review of the movie, which I thought was rather excellent.

Personally I’m well aware that not everyone was on board with this movie leading up to its release. DC in general doesn’t have the best reputation right now. In a desperate attempt to play catch-up to Marvel, they fell flat on their face and became quite the laughing stock for people. And since then they’ve essentially abandoned this idea of a cinematic universe as they’ve been throwing everything at the wall in order to see what sticks. I can see why that sort of scatterbrained philosophy might seem like a turnoff to people, but I think it’s worked out rather well. If you pay attention to the actual comics, that’s exactly what the comics do. There’s not necessarily just one storyline that’s happening. Continuity is often thrown out the window and timelines are all over the places as different writers and artists are all just trying to tell their own stories. And I think DC taking this approach with their movie universe has been the best thing that’s happened to them in terms of creating quality content. Instead of trying to create one big universe that’s all interconnected with the same exact tone in every movie, they’re letting directors simply make movies. Giving full control to these filmmakers and allowing them to do what they want has really opened the door to an endless amount of possibilities and also allows for more variety and creative freedom.

As great as Marvel is and as much as I enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe, their massive success is both a blessing and a curse. They have their formula down and it really works, but they are now strapped to that formula. Any time they try to stray from that and do something different, they’re going to get backlash from their core audience, especially parents who now believe the MCU should always be 100 percent kid-friendly. For proof of that, go dig up online discussion of what parents thought of “Eternals” when Chloe Zhao included one slight edgy scene. Meanwhile in James Gunn’s universe, he’s certainly cackling over all of that. Marvel is under fire for that while he’s doing things that are 1,000 times worse in the likes of “The Suicide Squad” and “Peacemaker.”

And that there proves my point in Marvel vs. DC right now. I won’t say that Marvel is doing bad by any stretch of the imagination, but DC right now has a lot more creative freedom and can get away with doing things like “Joker,” “The Suicide Squad” and “The Batman.” And even though “Birds of Prey” was a slightly failed experiment, albeit still entertaining to me, I commend them for taking chances. And the freedom to take those chances in my opinion has led to much higher highs in the DC realm. Those three aforementioned movies, “Joker,” “The Suicide Squad” and now “The Batman” I think are far superior to most things in the MCU. Yet they’re the type of movies that Marvel can’t even dream of making right now. Again, I’m not trying to crap on Marvel or make this a Marvel vs. DC fight. “Infinity War” is still probably one of my favorite ever comic book movies and “No Way Home” was one of my favorite movies overall from last year. But as someone who has been a lifelong DC fan, I’ve been very happy about the content they’ve been able to put forward. And I’m grateful that we now have a Batman movie that is essentially a dream come true. All this because DC gave the keys to Matt Reeves and let him do whatever he wanted to do.

And yeah, sure, it’s kinda weird that we’ve had so many Bruce Waynes show up recently. And that might continue if “The Flash” pulls a “No Way Home” by bringing back both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck via Multiverse stuff in their movie. Throw in young Bruce Wayne from “Joker” and Christian Bale from the Nolanverse and that’s a potential of five live-action Bruce Waynes showing up within the last decade? And that’s not even counting the name-drop of a different Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse who has yet to show up or the various Gotham-related TV shows that I have yet to watch. It’s definitely an oversaturation of Batman and Bruce Wayne. But in the golden era of comic book stuff, I’m really enjoying it. Yet through all that, I think we now have my ultimate favorite version of Gotham with a new Batman universe that I think certainly has the best start of any Batman universe and has the potential to become the best version of Batman that we’ve seen in live-action via Robert Pattinson.

Speaking of whom, Robert Pattinson is another reason why not everyone has been open to this version of Batman. I hope that the trailers squelched a lot of that skepticism, but it’s a really annoying, ongoing phenomenon that some people have not been able to forgive both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson for “Twilight.” And yes, those were bad performances in atrociously awful movies, but the world needs to move on from “Twilight” and realize that both of these actors have done amazing work. Pattinson specifically has done things like “Good Time” and “The Lighthouse” that immediately made me phenomenally excited for him as Batman, especially with them portraying a younger and more broken Bruce Wayne. He’s the perfect choice. And even “Tenet” from 2020 should’ve proved to general audiences who don’t see indie films that Pattinson can act. But, well, we’re still here.

Whether or not he converted you with this performance or caused you to go see this movie, him teaming up with Matt Reeves, director of the new “Planet of the Apes” trilogy, proved to me personally that I was justified in being excited for this movie. I mean, just imagine if the director of said “Planet of the Apes” trilogy was given full control over a new Batman movie and he cast the guy from “Good Time” as his new Batman. Sound exciting? Well, it should be because that level of quality is exactly what we got. Matt Reeves is an excellent storyteller and a master at his craft. And he has built something truly special.

Having a Batman movie being dark, gritty, and grounded in reality is certainly an idea that is not new. That’s been around since at least Tim Burton’s live-action Batman movie in 1989. And maybe longer in the comics. I’m not sure of that history. But yeah, the shtick with DC is that Superman is light and fluffy while Batman is dark and gritty. But even with that said, Reeves with his Gotham has built upon what Nolan did with his Gotham, who in turn built upon what Burton did with his Gotham. It’s been a progression that’s been incredible to see, especially after doing a marathon of the movies fairly recently. What’s really impressive is that Reeves has made this feel more real than even what Nolan accomplished, which in turn now makes Burton’s movies even more silly and hokey in comparison. Granted, being silly and goofy is not necessarily a bad thing in the comic book realm or even in the Batman realm. I put both “Batman and Robin” and the 1966 “Batman: The Movie” really high up on my Batman list for simply being silly and fun. There’s not one way that a Batman movie has to be filmed and portrayed. It’s just that this version feels like the ultimate version of Gotham that pleases me the most with how it has unfolded.

The first positive thing in that regard is that this is Year Two Batman. In other words, Reeves fully realizes that everyone and their dog knows the Batman origin story. We don’t need to watch another movie that shows him putting on the mask, training to become a Ninja, and being Batman for the very first time. And we definitely don’t need to watch Thomas and Martha Wayne get killed yet again. We’ve seen all that. And any changes in the origin can be easily discussed and learned as we go, using various creative storytelling choices. Point in case, the Thomas Wayne backstory is different in this universe, but we learn of that as Bruce Wayne has conversations with the likes of Alfred and the Riddler after newscasts get revealed about certain things he may have done that surprise Bruce in this movie. That’s a way to tell an origin of a character without the movie being an origin story itself.

The other major benefit of this Year Two idea, and what I really loved about this movie, is that this Bruce Wayne hasn’t figured things out. We begin the movie with a narrative monologue from Bruce himself, via his journal writing, wherein he’s expressing his concerns that he doesn’t really know if he’s doing any good. And he’s seemingly questioning this idea of going out at night in a bat suit altogether. And his Bruce Wayne life is definitely in shambles. In just about every other Batman, while Bruce Wayne definitely has his challenges and his obstacles to overcome, he nevertheless has a much higher confidence level in what he’s doing. We haven’t really seen Batman questioning his existence as Batman. And in most cases, he’s really good at using Bruce Wayne as a cover. I’ve seen a lot of people on Twitter questioning the portrayal of Bruce Wayne here because they don’t like that we didn’t get the Billionaire Playboy version of Bruce Wayne that Batman uses as a mask to hide his identity. And while people are allowed to have their opinions, I love that Bruce Wayne in this movie hasn’t figured this out. He’s a more broken Bruce Wayne than he’s ever been before. And while he’s certainly a skilled fighter and has a really good suit that provides great protection, he’s not a perfect, flawless fighter yet. He gets beaten up by some that are stronger and he’s sometimes nervous to fly around with his suit and definitely fails at doing so at one point.

All of this is impressive to me because Reeves decided to use Batman as a means to create a character-driven narrative. The movie definitely has plenty of action sequences. And said action sequences are fantastic. It has a thrilling car chase sequence that you see previewed in the trailer. And the fighting sequences are really gritty and bone-crunching. Each blow makes you wince a bit in ways that typical superhero affair, Marvel or DC, usually don’t accomplish. It’s easy to kick back and relax during a summer action blockbuster and be entertained by brainless action, but this movie letting you feel the weight of the action elevates it above much of that affair. Yet despite this, the movie feels more like a drama than a superhero action film. The action sequences aren’t the point of the movie. Experiencing the heavy weight of what Bruce has gone through and how he’s responding to such a difficult life is the point. And that’s why I really gravitated towards this movie’s character building and loved the fact that the movie was long enough to let all of this breathe.

Yes, it’s long. And yes, you feel that length. I walked out feeling like I had binged a whole season of a Batman show. But I don’t mind that. I binge shows all the time. And especially with superhero shows being more commonplace, I often think that medium benefits the characters more in compared to a 90 or 120 minute movie. To Marvel’s credit, their Disney+ shows have allowed characters like Wanda and Loki to experience a lot more real progression than if either of them had been given a movie instead. So the 175 minutes of “The Batman” I think did a real favor in allowing this specific character to grow and blossom in ways that even Michael Keaton or Christian Bale’s Batman weren’t able to do. And those movies weren’t short by any stretch of the imagination. Yet “The Batman” felt like the Batman movie that allowed its Bruce Wayne to really grow and progress more than any other Batman movie.

Intermixed with this Bruce Wayne character piece was a villain who perfectly complimented and mirrored him. Some comic book movies include a villain out of a seemingly moral obligation to do so. And that’s not inherently wrong. But this Bruce Wayne having to deal with this version of the Riddler was truly key to his arc in this movie. And I don’t want to dive too far into this portrayal of the Riddler because I didn’t declare this as a spoiler review, but nevertheless I think Paul Dano does to the character of the Riddler what Heath Ledger did to the character of the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” Both of them gave legendary, cinema-defining performances and I think both of them are on the same level of quality. There’s even mirroring interrogation scenes in both “The Dark Knight” and “The Batman” that are equally as impressive in my mind. Watching this unfold in “The Batman” had me in pure awe that we were getting something that rivaled “The Dark Knight” in terms of Batman movies.

But different than “The Dark Knight” and more aligned with 2019’s “Joker” is that this movie paid homage a classic filmmaker and genre. “Joker” was basically a classic Scorsese film with Joker characters and “The Batman” is basically a David Fincher crime drama film with Batman characters. In this case, the Riddler as a villain was perfect. And it’s the complete opposite of Jim Carrey’s portrayal in “Batman Forever” or even some of the classic animated portrayals. The Riddler is a serial killer who is using clues and puzzles to string along the police and Batman. In which case, he feels like the Zodiac killer, who did that in real life and is portrayed in David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” which has always been a favorite of mine. The other Fincher film that everyone has been pointing out in comparison is “Se7en,” which is most certainly not based on real events, but is a movie wherein a killer uses the seven deadly sins as his motives. In that movie, you have Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman visiting each of his new crime scenes to figure out who he is and what he is doing.

Essentially “The Batman” is just that. It’s Jim Gordon and Batman going to each of the Riddler’s new crime scenes to figure out who he is and what he is doing, especially since each of his victims is a prominent member of the Gotham community. Why is the Riddler doing this and what are his motives? As someone who thinks both “Zodiac” and “Se7en” are two of the greatest crime dramas ever made, and as someone whose favorite genre of TV and filmmaking are these thrilling crime dramas, this put a smile on my face for much of the movie in a way that replicated Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim Burton’s “Batman.” I mean, you take two of my favorite things, DC comic book movies and serial killer crime dramas, and you put them together in a grand and glorious way? How can I not just simply soak the whole thing in as if it was a movie where Matt Reeves decided to stalk me personally, learn of all my favorite things, and create a piece of cinema that he knew I would absolutely love?

That was my first reaction when my friend sitting next to me in the movie theater during the credits leaned over to me and asked me what I thought. It was a movie made just for me. And it also did something that I’ve been wanting from a Batman movie in a long time. Detective Batman. This is a Batman who’s not just out fighting crime and punching bad guys. He’s solving crimes. He has contact lenses that records what he’s doing and he has a journal each night where he writes down what he sees and thinks about it after reviewing the video. When the Riddler leaves clues, in addition to discussing it with Jim Gordon on the scene, him and Alfred work together at home to decipher things in a way that feels like this is what they do every night rather than it being a new thing for this case. And even though Andy Serkis’ Alfred has less screen time compared to other characters, him and Pattinson pair perfectly as Bruce Wayne and Alfred. Andy Serkis is just as perfect to this version of Bruce Wayne as Michael Caine was to Christian Bale’s version of Bruce Wayne.

Now I’ve already written nearly 3,000 words of a review, which is more words than many may choose to actually read, but the other incredible thing about this movie is that there’s just so much that is perfectly set-up. This is a Gotham that has been lived in and a Gotham where a lot of the key characters are already there. It’s not an introduction to a new franchise wherein the filmmakers have to scramble to figure out what they’re going to do in future movies and thus create sequels that feel like they’re just cashing in on the success of the first. Matt Reeves, while successfully focusing in on making one good movie, has also put the building blocks together for a grand universe. There are characters like Catwoman, Penguin and Carmine Falcone that are established already and whose presence feels natural. A history about Thomas and Martha Wayne that is fascinating to learn more about. It’s a whole city full of people and characters that I’m excited to explore. One where I’d love to visit even in a TV show setting without Batman in it, but am certainly excited for more Pattinson films with Reeves. We’ve done a lot of Gotham lately, but I want this to now be our definitive Gotham moving forward for the unforeseeable future.

If this movie wasn’t for you, that’s OK. I understand. Much like I understand how not everyone is crazy enough to have watched all 323 episodes of “Criminal Minds” or to have binged the first season of Fincher’s Netflix series “Mindhunter” in one evening. And I know I turned some heads by claiming “Joker” as my No. 1 movie of 2019 and one of my top movies of the 2010s decade as a whole. But if you know all of that about me, I hope you’ll understand why “The Batman” was made for me and why I loved every second of it. And you’ll also understand how I can write a 3,000 word review and still feel like I left things out, especially since this is a not a spoiler review and the final half of the film itself has plenty of content that could double the length of this review if I let it. I’ve tried to do shorter reviews recently. And I’ve posted a lot of them straight to Facebook instead of dedicating a whole post to them on this blog. But this is a situation where I couldn’t help but just use this blog as a platform to express everything that I want to about a movie that was made for me.

Again, if this is not your type of movie, that’s totally fine. But if you know that your taste aligns with mine in terms of things that I’ve mentioned, definitely run out to see this movie if you didn’t already contribute to its $134 million opening weekend. But one final thing that I’ll mention is that I honestly don’t think this is as dark of a movie as “The Dark Knight” is, so if that movie was too dark for you, I still think this is maybe a movie you should give a chance to? The violence has weight to it, but it’s not bloody or graphic. And while the movie is dark the whole run time in a literal sense of it taking place mostly at night, there is a lot of levity scattered throughout. Not like a Marvel movie, but I laughed more than I was expecting to. And thematically, the movie leaves with a sense of positivity and hope instead of feeling grim and weighed down with so much darkness. There’s a difference between being physically dark and being thematically dark and this movie isn’t as thematically dark as one might think, which is why the criticism of it being “too dark” is one that I vehemently disagree with.

Without diving into spoilers of the ending, there is an arc for Bruce Wayne wherein he is a much different Bruce Wayne at the end that, not unlike Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, might take us a few movies for him to figure out who he is and eventually become the Batman that we all know and love. And in turn may squash some concerns about him not being the Batman that some wanted him to be. I think there is patience to be had, but also the evidence of that being an eventual thing is right here in the movie and not just speculative. And if Matt Reeves pulls this franchise off like he did with his Planet of the Apes trilogy, I have no doubt that this specific franchise has the potential to wind up as the best individual Batman franchise that cinema has provided. It’s already off to the best start so far and I can’t want to explore it more. A movie that rivals “The Dark Knight” and outdoes the origins of “Batman Begins” is not what I was even expecting out of this, but it is exactly what we got. And I couldn’t be happier.

Grade: 10/10

The Matrix: Franchise Review (Original, Reloaded, Revolutions, Resurrections)

Here’s a unique review for you. Instead of one review of the latest entry in The Matrix franchise, I’m here to deliver you a review of the entire franchise as a whole. No, this isn’t going to be four detailed reviews of each film. While this post is long, given that I’m talking about an entire franchise, I’ve decided to pick and choose which points to highlight. Strong emphasis on the original film and a decent-sized conversation about this most recent one, but the main goal here is to highlight why the first one worked so well and compare those notes to the sequels that have come after it rather than give a detailed dive into each of the four movies.

Because here’s the thing. I had not seen any of the Matrix sequels until last week. I saw the original not too long before it came out. Not in theaters because I was only 10 when it was released, but I remember watching it on TV at my friends place at some point in the early 2000s, probably around sixth or seventh grade, give or take. But I never got around to watching the other two after they were released. I was more of a casual movie fan until I moved out for college, so some of those 2000s movies and earlier escaped me, especially ones liked the Matrix sequels that everyone seemed to hate. Catching up just wasn’t high on my priority list.

But nevertheless, one cannot watch and review a fourth movie in a franchise without having seen the previous three. I was going to get caught up before “Resurrections” was released in theaters and on HBO Max on Christmas. But I failed. Yet I made the commitment to watch all four before “Resurrections” left HBO Max, which was on my birthday, January 21. With literally minutes to go before it disappeared, my task was complete. And thus being in a Matrix mood, all of thoughts on the four movies have been swirling around in my head and need to escape, not just thoughts on the final one. So this is why I am approaching this review in this way.

Before I completely bury my lede here, I will say that none of the Matrix sequels live up to the original film. In fact, they get progressively worse. This latest iteration especially feels useless and overly convoluted. They spend the whole movie trying to justify this new movie’s existence. And it seems quite evident based on scenes in the movie itself that Lana Wachowski had no desire to even make this film, but she was forced into a corner by Warner Bros. themselves, who were going to make a sequel with or without her. So she uninspiringly threw one together and the result is a really ugly mess that was also a massive failure at the box office.

But to fully understand exactly why this one was a mess, there needs to be an understanding of what exactly made the first movie succeed and why none of the sequels were able to recapture that magic that the first movie presented.

"The Matrix"

I found it a rather immersive experience diving into that original film again. With the benefit of hindsight, the plot itself is nothing remarkable. We’ve seen many times, before and after 1999, the story of humans versus artificial intelligence. As technology continues to evolve, there seems to be a consistent, overarching fear that one day the technology is going to get more advanced than humans can handle and completely take over. And that fear is often reflected by authors and filmmakers in various media, including books, TV shows, and movies. Even back in 1999, “The Matrix” had its own inspirations, like the 1995 anime “The Ghost in the Shell.” And when it comes to humans vs. artificial intelligence, a lot of inspirations can perhaps be traced back to 1982’s “Blade Runner.” Fast forward 23 years and this particular niche has been oversaturated to the extreme.

But even with that, what makes “The Matrix” so immersive is how they set up the world. There is a well-executed balanced between the world building and the stylized action. The audience is essentially put in the shoes of Neo, our main character, who feels like a normal human being living a normal life until suddenly a lot of trippy things start happening. He learns that the world he knows is essentially fake, a virtual creation of the artificial intelligence, who have almost completely wiped out the human race. They’ve kept humanity in these little pods that inject the virtual world into their minds while their real bodies are rotting on the side of a cliff. Neo learns about all this while also getting the bombshell that he is to be the “Chosen One,” to save the remaining or escaped humans from the machines.

When I re-watched “The Matrix” last week, I actually watched it twice. Sure, some of the superfans probably know it like the back of their hands, but having not watched it in years, there’s a whole lot of lore that they throw you into. It’s a lot to take in at first and thus you feel for Neo as he’s trying to figure out what exactly is going on and what exactly he’s supposed to do. But as everything connects in the end, it’s really a fun experience going through it again and having all of those final dots be connected. It’s not just a bunch of fun action sequences, but it is an absolutely fascinating world. And the way in which they slowly layer everything upon itself is incredibly well put together. As Neo learns about all this, he becomes smarter and stronger, meaning the action sequences mixed in get progressively better and more entertaining. And there is a level of intensity and fear with those action sequences with all the uncertainty revolving around them. It’s one thing to watch people punch, kick, and shoot at each other. It’s another to not know how things are going to resolve. If you fear for your protagonist’s safety, you become a lot more emotionally invested in the sequences.

And speaking of the action sequences, what “The Matrix” is best known for is that stylized action. Given the setup of this virtual world, the typical laws of the universe don’t exactly apply like they would in the normal universe. So as our Chosen One learns more of his abilities, he also learns how to defy the laws of physics, adding a new layer to the action. And on top of that, the slow motion work along with those physics-defying sequences made this a milestone event in the world of action and sci-fi. To the point where it was copied and parodied just about everywhere and became a bit stale. Yet the original movie never ceased to be entertaining.

"The Matrix Reloaded"

Yes, I said that this review was not going to be a detailed synopsis of all of the four movies, but detailing the first one feels very important here to establishing why the sequels never lived up. These elements that I brought up here that make “The Matrix” so great aren’t followed like they should. There’s a formula that the Wachowskis laid out for themselves in the first movie that they were never able to go back and follow, whether or not they were invested in doing so. And that ultimately is why the sequels are disappointing. “The Matrix” can stand on its own as a singular film, but Neo doesn’t save the world in that first movie. He gets to the point where he now has the ability to do so, and promises the enemies that he is going to defeat them, but there is a cliffhanger there that sets up for a grand and beautiful franchise that ultimately is never realized. So much potential that is completely wasted.

Now I don’t want to come in and jump on the bandwagon of hate as if I’m morally obligated as a movie fan to do so. I know people who have really loved all three movies. And I also know that some fan reaction is very black and white. If a movie is not the epic masterpiece that you wanted it to be, people often unfairly discard it as trash. See any of the Star Wars sequels. None of the recent movies are the worst movie in the world, but sometimes when you care about a franchise so much, “average” and “decent” are not acceptable. The disappointment turns into hatred because your expectations were so high. “The Matrix Reloaded” still has the fifth highest opening weekend ever for an R-rated movie. And it held the record of highest R-rated opener for 13 years until “Deadpool” came around in 2016. Fans were massively excited for it, yet were massively disappointed. Were they justified in their hate or were they being unfair?

Obviously you know my answer to that question now, but that’s an honest question that I had going into the sequels. I wasn’t just falling in line to what I was supposed to think. I genuinely thought it was possible that I would enjoy the sequels given that I don’t have the same level of superfandom attached to “The Matrix.” And my expectations going in were different. If you expect to get disappointed, then you can’t get disappointed, right?

And honestly “Reloaded” isn’t that bad. It obviously had big shoes to follow. And while it didn’t manage to be an “Empire Strikes Back,” a sequel to an iconic, groundbreaking film that somehow managed to be better than the first, you can tell that the Wachowskis really tried hard to up the ante and make this a bigger and better film. To which I give a tip of the hat for an honest effort.

The ultimate issues lie in the topic of balance. And I made such a big effort in speaking of “The Matrix” being a well-balanced and properly layered film because, in my opinion, that’s where “Reloaded” falls flat on its face. All four Matrix films overload you with exposition. And exposition is not an inherently bad thing as some people make it out to be. But “The Matrix” balanced that exposition in a way that made you progressively learn about this world along with the main character. “Reloaded” gives you immensely heavy exposition dumps squeezed into small periods of film time. And in between those immensely heavy exposition dumps are action sequences that are the biggest and longest action sequences that you might find in any action film, which can be both a positive and a negative.

Yes, the 17-minute care chase sequence might be the most entertaining car chase sequence you’ve ever watched. Yes, the scene in the playground at the beginning with Neo and the hundreds of Agent Smiths is an absolutely insane fight. And yes, the staircase sequence with Neo vs. the French guy and all of his cronies is fantastic. But I think it’s quite possible that they were a bit too much. It was a bit action heavy and minimal on plot. Minimal, yet dense, as I described. The Wachowskis could’ve spread the exposition out more cleverly across the film in doses that were easy to take. In doing so, cut down some of those action sequences to make a better balanced film. And if you tell me that’s preposterous and you don’t want the car chase any shorter, then might I remind you that “The Matrix” wasn’t an action-heavy film. The action sequences were spread out and well executed. The focus was on quality action, not quantity of action. And that’s why it worked so well.

The other part of the action sequences that I noticed is that the stakes weren’t as high. That’s also why I mentioned in my summary of the first film that you can become a lot more invested in a movie if you fear for the life of your protagonist or the opponent seems too strong to overcome. Because in “Reloaded” Neo has essentially reached God status. In more context than one. I think him coming to Zion and having a large crowd of people on their knees begging for his help was a bit heavy-handed. It was as if he was literally their Jesus Christ. But outside that, in the context of action sequences, he’s basically Superman. He can fly, he can easily fight off any opponent in hand-to-hand combat, and he can’t miss any target with his gun. And he can also make any bullets drop in midair. And when your opponent is this invincible, the reward isn’t as high when he wins. Despite the action being incredibly well put together, it becomes like the lightsaber fights in the Star Wars prequels, also released around this time. It’s basically like choreographed dances and not fights. And that’s not as intense in comparison.

In short, bigger doesn’t equal better. I think the Wachowskis’ main problem is that they tried to go too big instead of building on the incredible mythology. It also suffers from being only half of a movie, because they literally filmed the two sequels back-to-back and release them in the same year. In current time, that’s not a huge problem. You can jump straight to the next one on HBO Max and treat it like one giant, five-hour movie (267 minutes total). But I think it would’ve been more rewarding if they focused on making one individually good movie because on its own it’s just a bunch of massive action sequences strung together  with a partial plot.

That said, if you want to treat it like one massive Matrix sequel, that makes it… worse.

"The Matrix Revolutions"

Because “The Matrix Revolutions” is a giant mess. I can concede that “Reloaded” is very watchable and entertaining. And maybe that’s a higher opinion of it than some people have. But I was not invested in “Revolutions” at all.

I don’t really care to do a massive deep dive into all of the problems of “Revolutions,” but the biggest issue for me is that it becomes a massive video game. The type of video game that I don’t really care for. I know gunplay is a thing in every Matrix movie, but it was stylized gunplay that mixed very well with its martial arts hand-to-hand combat. The whole middle section of “Revolutions” had no stylized action at all. It was a massive battle with all the machines invading Zion and the defenders of Zion endlessly shooting their machine guns at them. And in most of these middle sequences, Neo is not involved. He went off on another quest that we finish the movie with. I’ll get to that in a second, but a Neo-less Matrix movie without the stylized action sequences and a bunch of new characters that I definitely don’t care about is not the sci-fi wonder that I wanted. This felt like a Michael Bay action film and not a brilliant sci-fi movie. In “Reloaded,” they tried to include elements of the first movie, they just had it mostly imbalanced. In “Revolutions,” just about everything that made “The Matrix” work was disregarded. And that was rather mind-boggling to me.

The sole interesting part of the movie that felt like a Matrix movie was the final act of the movie where Neo arrives at Machine City. And when your only good moment is the final act, that’s a problem. I can pick apart “Reloaded” pretty easily, but at least it kept me entertained for all three acts. The only good action sequence in this movie is when Neo gets plugged into the Matrix again at the end and has his final confrontation with Agent Smith. And to that scene’s credit, it’s incredible. But one good scene at the end is not nearly enough to make up for the fact that the rest of the movie was a massive dumpster fire.

But even with that one really good sequence, I had many questions about the resolution of the film. I don’t want to do a deep dive into all my questions, and spoiler alert for the movie if you’re like me and hadn’t seen it yet are wanting to, but here’s some quick highlights of my confusion. Trinity dies pretty unceremoniously. They crash landed into Machine City and that killed her. Granted, I think there are parts of all four movies that focused way too much on that romance, but it’s still a bit anticlimactic the way they wrote her off. But a bigger bullet point is how Neo so easily made peace with the Machines. He basically just went in and asked them if they could have peace and they agreed? 200 years of fighting these things and all they had to do was kindly ask them to not fight? That’s weird. And final point, while the Agent Smith fight was really good, I’m a bit confused as to how it actually ended. He let Agent Smith take him over and then all the Agent Smiths exploded. Maybe that one is explainable, but it still left me puzzled. And I think that there could’ve been a better resolution.

So anyways, Neo is dead. We think. Trinity is dead. But the Agent Smiths went boom and Neo asked for peace, so peace we have and a conclusion we have been led to. Maybe. Because it still ended in a slightly ambiguous way with the Oracle’s conversation with the Architect. Maybe Neo is gone for good? Maybe he’ll come back? Maybe the peace will remain or maybe the Machines will decide to change their mind and go to war again?

I don’t think it was a very satisfactory ended, but it needs to be emphasized that it was still an ending. An ending in which the Wachowskis never intended on coming back to. And I do believe they said that in interviews. Matrix 4 was never in the plans for them.

"The Matrix Resurrections"

Which awkwardly leads us to this new movie, “Matrix Resurrections.” And, oh boy, if I thought “Revolutions” was a dumpster fire, I was in for one in “Resurrections.” Even though I hadn’t seen the previous two Matrix movies in this franchise, I will be honest and say that I never was excited for this movie. I know a lot of people that were super hyped. And I know a lot of people that watched the trailer and were blown away. While I admit that “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane was a perfect song choice for the trailer, the trailer never excited me. It never looked good. It never looked interesting. It’s just a thing that existed. My analysis was that Warner Bros. saw the major Keanaissance take place with how massively popular Keanu Reeves has become since the John Wick movies and decided that they were going to make another Matrix movie. Studios reviving old franchises is becoming a very trendy thing today in the wake of the Disney Star Wars era and others. And it can work. But if a studio decides to mandate a franchise revival from filmmakers who never wanted that franchise to be revived, that’s a big issue.

And when push comes to shove, that’s all that “Resurrections” feels like. As it turns out, both Neo and Trinity are alive and living normal lives in a revived or rebooted version of the Matrix. But not just that, Neo works as a video game creator. He’s made three video games called “The Matrix” and now Warner Bros. is forcing him to make a new Matrix video game. And there is an extensive discussion in their office about the necessity of making another Matrix game and all the implications of a reboot or a sequel to this.

Look, maybe some people liked how Meta that was. But for me, I was like… what? And it’s not just subtle or slightly referential. This is all-out Deadpool making fun of Fox and pop culture inside of his movie. And for Deadpool it works. That’s the point of Deadpool. But turning The Matrix into Deadpool did not feel like it fit in anywhere. It felt like Warner Bros. approached Lana Wachowski and said, you’re making this movie or someone else is. So forced into a corner, she wrote a Matrix movie. And she decided to spend the first act of the movie calling out Warner Bros. on their absurdity inside of her film. And somehow that screenplay with all of that in it got the green light from Warner Bros., which is both hilarious and mind-boggling.

In hindsight, this is not the first 2021 Warner Bros. movie to make full Warner Bros. meta references. That was all of “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” Also in hindsight, maybe Warner Bros. should’ve asked someone different than the Wachowskis. Granted, I will admit that I need to go revisit "Speed Racer” and “Cloud Atlas,” but this sibling duo is fully responsible for “Jupiter Ascending,” one of the worst movies ever. And, as I’ve pointed out in detail, they didn’t seem to fully understand what it was about their original Matrix movie that made it work so well. And if they did, they didn’t execute well. So in my opinion, the Wachowskis are not good filmmakers. They made one great movie, “The Matrix,” and a lot of trash ever since. So this sequel just seemed like a project doomed to fail. A studio mandated sequel from poor filmmakers who didn’t seem interested in making this in the first place.

That’s all that really needs to be said, but outside the confusing meta sequence with The Matrix being a video game franchise that Neo programmed, this is the longest Matrix movie at 2 hours 28 minutes and the movie spends approximately the first two hours trying to justify its existence and never succeeding. It’s two hours of massive exposition dump and a plot that mostly revolves around Neo trying to save Trinity from the Matrix. Because once he’s gotten out, he now tries to figure out how to convince her to escape when her new Matrix life is being happily married (to someone who isn’t Neo) with kids. Add to that a whole slew of new characters that are even more uninteresting that the ones they introduced in “Revolutions.” There’s also a recast Morpheus that is kinda in the movie and a few useless cameos, most notably the Frenchman from “Reloaded,” who is only there for the most useless moment of nostalgia vomit, not even getting two minutes of screen time.

And don’t ask me how Neo and Trinity are now alive. I guess the Machines just decided that they needed to be alive and in a pod again. Which totally undermines anything from the trilogy itself, given that we now know that the stakes are even lower. If you die, you can just be brought back. So there’s not even a fear of death.

There is only one action sequence that is even remotely entertaining. And it comes at the two hour mark. And even then, it’s a slightly forgettable action sequence in comparison to other action sequences that we’ve had in recent movies. I didn’t expect the movie to revolutionize the action genre like the first movie, or be any sort of milestone in filmmaking, but I was hoping for some action sequences that at least felt close to the John Wick movies, given that I theorize that’s why this movie exists, or at least be somewhat reminiscent of the original Matrix movie. At the very least, give me a big, fun action sequence like that in “Reloaded.” Nope. Whatever expectation there was for at least a minor moment of entertainment never panned out.

The only solace I gain from this whole debauchery was that it was a massive failure at the box office. It opened to $10.7 million at the domestic box office and has made $36.7 million domestically at the point of me typing this up. For context, the previous three movies opened to $27.8 million, $91.8 million, and $48.5 million, respectively. Adjusted for ticket price inflation, given that was 1999 and 2003, that is the current equivalent of $50.1 million, $139.4 million, and $73.6 million. Their final domestic totals were $173.9 million, $281.6 million, and $139.3 million, which again translate to $313.7 million, $427.7 million, and $211.6 million. To follow that up with a $10 million opening perhaps a final total that reaches $50 million domestically is nothing but an absolute disaster. And its worldwide total ($148.6 million right now) hasn’t even yet matched its production budget ($190 million). And usually you need to make two to three times your production budget to get a profit.

There’s no way around it. “Resurrections” failed to resurrect the franchise at the box office. Some watched on HBO Max (myself included), but I promise that didn’t make up the difference. I don’t even need numbers to know that. And COVID isn’t really an excuse given that “Spider-Man: Now Way” just made $1.7 billion worldwide so far. What this really means is that we’re not getting a fifth Matrix movie. The Wachowskis don’t want to do it and there’s no way Warner Bros. can justify a sequel with that financial output, not to mention that the majority of fans seem to also hate it. I can, with confidence, say that the Matrix franchise is now over. To which I unfortunately say…

Good.

We can safely pretend that the first movie is the only one that happened and that the rest never existed. That’s probably how it should’ve been, which is unfortunate given how much potential there was to keep going. If only someone competent was in charge.