A World of Kino 31 | The Matrix Trilogy, Free Guy, The Last Tempation of Christ & more

OK, this AWOK episode is absolutely packed with films. Now, there will unfortunately be a lot of negative reviews at the beginning; and I mean A LOT – some of them are even pretty controversial! But worry not, as if you manage to withstand through the bumpy start of this episode, I have a whole string of Jesus films at the very end to save our souls.

Let’s begin by continuing my attempt to get into Leos Carax, with Holy Motors:

We follow 24 hours in the life of a being moving from life to life like a cold and solitary assassin moving from hit to hit. In each of these interwoven lives, the being possesses an entirely distinct identity: sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes youthful, sometimes old. By turns murderer, beggar, company chairman, monstrous creature, worker, family man.

Now, I think I get what the film is trying to do: he’s an actor and the whole world is literally a stage, right? But it was such an endless barrage of nonsense that it caused me to become utterly disinterested in what could have been a decent premise. There’s simply no coherency from scene to scene or even within the scenes themselves, and while I can see such unrestrained weirdness being appealing to a lot of people, it sadly just made me detest it all the more. Hating Annette should have been a clear sign to me that I should stay well away from Leos Carax, because despite there being occassionally well crafted moments, as a whole his style is evidently not for me.

This next one is probably my spiciest take in a very long time, and that’s Mad Max Fury Road:

An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and most everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order.

Now, I’ve seen people argue that this is a Jesus allegory (that was literally the only reason I watched this), but I can’t see how those conclusions could be drawn so I’m not going to let it tarnish the actual good collection of Jesus movies I have waiting for you. Because my God, this was just infuriating to watch. I tried watching it once before but hated it so much I switched it off after only 5 minutes. Now I know my instincts were right, because I often felt like ending it prematurely again. I will admit that visually it’s great, with an abundance of creative machinery amidst a lovely orange aesthetic. But the film is so damn goofy, and not in a good way. From the ridiculous character designs to the pitiful writing to the utterly abysmal performances, everything is just obnoxiously over the top in a shallow kind of way. I could even call this the epitome of style over substance, because the narrative is stupidly hollow. I really don’t get what everybody sees in this film, since even ignoring the awful writing, it wasn’t even able to entertain me properly – which is the bare minimum a blockbuster should be able to accomplish.

Here’s a Japanese film from the 30s to change up the pace a bit – I Was Born, But:

Two young brothers become the leaders of a gang of kids in their neighborhood.

Nope, I don’t get it. Just a boring film through and through, which is why I find it so weird that this is classified as a comedy, because I’ll be damned if you’ll find anything funny in it. I tried watching Tokyo Story a while ago but couldn’t even get past the beginning, so now I know that this is simply Ozu’s style. I guess most people just really like these overly drawn out slice of life films, but I certainly don’t. And while I can see some glimmers of thematic threads trying their hardest to rise above the silent mundanity that dominates this film – and it did get vaguely more interesting after an hour (aka 2/3rds) had elapsed – suffering through this whole film was such a pointless endeavour. 

And now for an obscure Bri’ish movie that I’m sure nobody will bother watching, and that’s The Last Bus:

Widower Tom, on the recent passing of his wife Mary, uses his free bus pass to travel the length of Britain from John O’Groats in Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall – their shared birthplace – using only local buses. It’s an incident-fuelled nostalgia trip and his encounters with local people make him a media phenomenon.

Timothy Spall was great, I guess, but my goodness this film is corny. The most artificial drama stemming from stupidly contrived conflicts, plodding along at the same pace Spall was walking at with a cheesy romance of reminiscence to give it ‘heart’. This is essentially just an assortment of vignettes tied together with a dreadfully loose string, and the end result is pitifully shallow. 

Oh boy, another musical biopic that will no doubt win a ton of undeserved awards. That’s right, I’m talking about Respect:

The rise of Aretha Franklin’s career: from a child singing in her father’s church to her international superstardom.

I could go on for ages about how messy the narrative structure is, how it dragged on for way too long, and how the singing is beyond annoying… but this episode is negative enough already, so I just don’t have the energy to dunk on it too hard. As such, for the sake of all of our sanity, I’m going to say that it’s simply ok. Honestly, Respect is finely produced with nary a scratch of poor filmmaking – plus Jennifer Hudson gives a great performance – so it’s not as vapid as many have already exclaimed. It’s an unbashful Oscar movie with semi-strong drama focusing on the life of somebody I couldn’t care less about, so at the end of the day it’s really not that bad. 

I think I’ve gone for too long without talking about an action movie, so here’s a new trashy one to sink your teeth into: Gunpowder Milkshake:

In her turbulent life as a professional assassin, Sam has no choice but to go rogue to save the life of an innocent 8-year-old girl in the middle of the gang war she has unleashed.

This is definitely a spoof of the John Wick type movies because it hits all the same beats – a violent but well meaning hero fighting through hordes of goons with slick camera work and on point choreography – only in a non-serious manner. I can definitely see myself digging such an endeavour because I tend to love these high octane action movies, so a parody had the potential to spice up the formula. But unfortunately, it fails utterly at actually being funny in its parody of the genre – except for the rare instances where I burst out laughing because of the unexpectedly stupid screenplay. My rating for this film fluctuated so much throughout the runtime, as there were some moments when I was genuinely getting into the style – the action, for example, is certainly well crafted and creative, and Seresin’s cinematography is as sublime as ever – but my enjoyment was always pulled right back down due to all the inexcusable failures of the writing. It didn’t even have the decency to end in a timely manner, instead droning on and on to tie up loose ends that really should have been dedicated to its own film, with every single overly long scene only managing to completely tarnish any fun I might have had.

And now for the first Jesus film of the episode, which coincidentally is called Jesus:

Yura is a young boy whose family leaves Tokyo to live with his grandmother in the snowy countryside, where he is enrolled into a Christian school.

I literally only watched this because this is the first result that comes up when you type ‘Jesus’ into Letterboxd. It’s weird that it’s a Japanese film – a festival one to boot – but I was doing a Jesus marathon at the time so here we are. Now, the slice of life bits are alright – if a little boring – as there are some decent character interactions. But the mini Jesus that appears to Yura is just embarrassing – I seriously don’t know the thought process behind jamming something so hideously silly into an otherwise alright film. Honestly, there’s practically nothing to talk about in this film, though I will note that the snow looks particularly pretty in spite of the basic camera work. This isn’t exactly worth watching, but it is competently made.

Returning to new releases now, with the first positive review of the episode – Herself:

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one – from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.

Hardly the most thrilling of premises, but it’s actually alright – albeit very slow – as it did keep my attention and is delivered with good enough performances that the story becomes real. And even though the moments of camaraderie with the people who volunteered to help her build the house did become a tad cringe in certain places – especially due to some very poor song choices – it still gave the thin premise a sense of purpose, plus the two daughters added a fairly compelling dynamic to the whole thing by being at the core of the story. I can’t say I recommend this film per se because it’s not exactly worth spending one’s money on, but after a week of thinking I’ve started to hate films, I’m content with this merely being ok.

Now this next one might sound negative, in spite of me thinking there’s more good than bad here, but it’s only because I was underwhelmed after seeing how highly rated it otherwise was. That film is Ida:

Anna, a young novitiate in 1960s Poland, is on the verge of taking her vows when she discovers a family secret dating back to the years of the German occupation.

Black and white is already a huge turn off for me, but it was also inexplicably in 4:3 aspect ratio; I just don’t get the point behind these superficial attempts to distinguish a film as somehow more artistic. Not to mention how it was almost dead silent, making it a terribly slow experience – in spite of the short runtime. Plus even though I know it was an intentional decision, the poor framing was extremely jarring as it honestly ruined many potentially great shots. I did start to like the film more when she began to question her faith however, as it did veer the story in a more interesting direction, away from what had been a rather flat plot up till then by finally introducing some explicit conflict inside the main character. Actually, it’s thanks to this final act that I realise just how much Saint Maud must have been influenced by Pawlikowski’s film. But while I do find value in some of the things Ida tries to explore, the way it’s all presented was just so ungripping, and the ending was dissapointingly uncathartic. This film is decent, but I don’t understand why everyone is singing its praises. 

This next entry is by far the film I was dreading watching the most this entire week, as I had several opportunities to watch this way earlier but was seriously reluctant at the idea. I present to you Free Guy:

A bank teller called Guy realizes he is a background character in an open world video game called Free City.

First up, Taika Waititi is hands down the highlight of this film. I absolutely loved every second he was on screen as he single handedly accounted for at least half of all my laughs. Ryan Reynolds is good too in the way he camps it up, and all the other actors give competent enough performances to liven up the plot. But Taika Waititi is definitely someone I would have loved to have seen even more of.

Free Guy can best be described as an amalgamation of The Truman Show, They Live, The Matrix, Ready Player One, The Lego Movie, and probably a whole host of other films dealing with similar concepts of waking up from a faux world or otherwise dealing with virtual reality and AI. Conceptually, it’s a premise absolutely teeming in rich themes – with plenty of excitement to be had on the way – and while Free Guy does take the formulaic route by getting bogged down in clichés, the way it takes all those ideas and makes them its own does make for a fun time. The screenplay is by no means great, as I did find myself groaning just as much as chuckling at all the dumb dialogue and stomach-churning cheese, but I think it takes its silliness with enough levity so as to be excusable. Not to mention how the entire world is crafted with such fantastic VFX, which are utterly sublime when the film delves right into the heart of the action. Objectively speaking, this is probably awful… but I did find it pretty enjoyable considering how low my expectations were for this going in. 

And now, from here on out, are the rest of the Jesus movies I promised you at the start, which amusingly enough are the best films of the episode. The first is The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ:

This is the story of Jesus Christ, from the proclamation of his Nativity to his Ascension into heaven.

This is the very first depiction of Jesus’s story put to screen, and while being silent and overtly theatrical does cause it to lose a lot of opportunity to make the characters feel properly real, this is one of the very first feature length films ever made, so it’s definitely impressive how well made it is regardless for something so old. The sets are gorgeous, packed full of iconic imagery, special effects, and even sporting a surprising amount of colour, which while verging on silly a number of times, is nevertheless remarkably sophisticated. The plot is as you would expect – it’s literally just a beat for beat rendition of Jesus’s story – but it’s adapted to the screen so well that it definitely makes it a must watch for anyone looking to dive into the dawn of cinema.

The main Jesus movie of the episode – and the one that inspired me to watch all the others – and that’s The Last Temptation of Christ:

Jesus, a humble Judean carpenter beginning to see that he is the son of God, is drawn into revolutionary action against the Roman occupiers by Judas – despite his protestations that love, not violence, is the path to salvation. The burden of being the savior of mankind torments Jesus throughout his life, leading him to doubt. As he is put to death on the cross, Jesus is tempted by visions of an ordinary life married to Mary Magdalene.

Scorsese is a director that I kind of have a love hate relationship with. On the one hand, I immensely admire all he has done for cinema, with a plethora of movies that he always crafts with immense passion. But on the other hand, I typically don’t like what he makes, especially all of those damn gang movies. With that said, Silence is my all time favourite of his, and considering Last Temptation is another film of his focusing wholly on faith, I must say I was very excited to watch this.

I was not let down in the slightest, because this is an utterly enthralling biopic of Jesus and the theological journey he undergoes. Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Jesus’s schizophrenic torment and spiritual hardship was utterly brilliant, delivering many fantastic lines and conveying so much pain with that wholly incredible face of his that encapsulates innocence, timidness, conviction, relief and agony so perfectly, plus his fascinating relationship with Harvey Keitel’s Judas made for the absolute best scenes. The supernatural stuff was a little silly however, as the faux divine apparitions were so poorly done, and Jesus’s speeches weren’t exactly as inspirational as the film believes they were. There was also quite a lot of shoddy camerawork in certain places – especially at the beginning – with some rather strange editing decisions that honestly just felt sloppy. But this was a really well acted and written film regardless, ending in a gorgeous final act.

It’s now time for the main event with The Matrix Trilogy, so “fasten your seat belt Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye-bye.”

In a false rendition of the late 20th century, computer hacker Neo discovers that the world is merely a simulation. After joining a group of insurgents who help unplug him from The Matrix, Neo learns to fight the machines in order to save humanity.

The main reason I decided to rewatch this trilogy is simply because I got hyped up by the newly released trailer for the upcoming fourth Matrix movie. I doubt it will be any good, but since I’ve been itching to rewatch these films for a while, that trailer gave me that extra enthusiasm needed to finally rewatch these masterpieces. And yes, I said “masterpieces”, because – just like with the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy – I genuinely don’t understand why the sequels get slated.

Starting with the first one (which is thankfully universally adored), The Matrix is simply a perfect film from start to finish. It’s just incredible how it builds up the world with such wonderful tension and with such devastating revelations, before transforming the whole thing into an utter thrill ride of impeccable fight choreography, beautiful cinematography, ground breaking special effects, sweet sound design, engrossing pacing, a fascinating plot, brilliant performances, and lavish amounts of philosophical pontifications. So many iconic scenes are packed into this film and all of them are a joy to watch. The way the Watchowskis manage to seemlessly blend the intellectually intriguing nature of philosophical monologuing with the excillaration of cool and campy Gun-Fu action is nothing short of cinematic perfection – it’s a wonder how well the two blend together. But what I truly value the most in this film are the characters, since they are the ones who breathe life into the world and convey all the emotion packed into the script: from Reeve’s lost and confused yet ultimately heroic Neo, to Weaving’s deliciously evil Agent Smith, to Fishburne’s enticingly enigmatic Morpheus, to Moss’s awesome Trinity, and even to Pantoliano’s lovably treacherous Cypher. The entire cast is gorgeous, elevating all that mesmerising pioneering work the Wachowskis managed to craft, with the slick coolnees and unremorseful sentimentality that makes this such a timeless story.

Ok, I suppose The Matrix Reloaded does lose a lot of the heart and mystery and endearing imperfections that made the first such a universally adored classic, so I will still say that I like the first more than this one. But in all honesty, everything just feels better crafted in this film: the world, the villains, the heroes, the fights, the writing, the story. A huge chunk of this film is essentially just an extremely long action sequence – beginning with the fantasticly slimy Merovingian and ending on the breathtaking motorway as cars, guns and katanas fly through the air – and it’s bloody amazing! Not to mention the absolutely brilliant final act where each team achieves their goals in perfect timing so that Neo can get his infamous meeting with the Architect. I don’t know why it’s such a hated scene, because everything he says is so engrossing and paramount to properly understanding the film, elevating The Matrix from merely awesome action into something properly timeless. The themes in this sequel have certainly moved a little bit too much away from the allegorical and into the literal, but Matrix Reloaded still strikes the most exquisite balance between philosophy and action, as both are endlessly engaging and in many ways exceeding the original. The first focused more on how free-will liberates the individual, while this sequel turns the whole thing on its head by delving deep into the inescapability of determinism, the inherent paradox of utopias, the overwhelming willpower of humans to ignore inevitability, and our symbiotic – even hypocritical – relationship with machines. What makes all those thrilling sequences of pioneering special effects and exhillarating fight choreography properly iconic is precisely how they’re each bookended by these periods of philosophising, because while they are certainly a bit rambly, they are utterly fascinating. The Wachowskis pull no punches in their exploration of the world, metaphors and lavishly complex ideas amidst a milieu of hypnotising explosions, slick costume design, lovably corny dialogue, anime-like physics, and a whole web of beautiful characters; and while I get why it feels heavy handed – even pretentious – to most people, the way it all unfolds is glorious in my eyes. 

The Matrix Revolutions is definitely the only film of the trilogy where I understand where the hate is coming from – as I too was really dissapointed by this one for a long time. But on this rewatch, my love for it shot way up, and I honestly think it will keep going up every time I rewatch it. Now, my biggest gripe with this finale is that the second act – which is essentially comprised of just the battle of Zion – strangely feels more like a James Cameron movie with those ridiculous mechas, mindless swarm of creatures and a never ending barrage of bullets. I do think that battle overstays its welcome as it’s so much less interesting than the main heart of the film: that is to say, Neo and Trinity. They are what make the first and third acts of the same caliber as the other films. And the first act does continue what makes the Matrix so damn cool, with the slick aesthetic and impeccable action, bringing back the lovely Merovingian and expanding the world with new amazing concepts and profound ideas. Meanwhile, the third act delves straight into the machine city in all its glorious slendour, climaxing with the awesome final showdown with Agent Smith. Speaking of the devil, Hugo Weaving is at his peak in this film: be it his brilliant delivery of the evil lines, or his gripping frustration at the stubbornness of humans, or that manic laugh of his that is utterly beautiful. So I guess it’s the sheer fun of Agent Smith, plus Neo and Trinity’s hyper-emotional love and gut-wrenching tragedy, that see this film past all the very rough narrative patches that are bumpier than when Niobi was piloting that ship, as the Zion scenes just don’t cut it for me. This third film is definitely of lower quality to the other two, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun all the same.