THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS : Tuesday 28th December 2021.

'THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS' which I saw earlier this week is an M Rated American Sci-Fi actioner Directed, Co-Written, Co-Produced by Lana Wachowski and based on characters created by both Lana and Lilly Wachowski, who between them both Wrote and Directed the three previous instalments in this hugely popular film franchise back in 1999 with 'The Matrix', then its first two sequels 'The Matrix Reloaded' and 'The Matrix Revolutions' both released in 2003. Those first three films grossed at the global Box Office US$1.63B off the back of a combined production budget of US$363M, but at the time the Wachowski's were adamant that the franchise ended with 'Revolutions' with the Writers/Directors going on to helm other film and TV projects together. However, in late 2019 a fourth film in the franchise was announced with Lana Wachowski returning to Direct but this time without her sister. This film saw its World Premier showcasing in Toronto, Canada on 16th of this month and was released in Russia on the same day, before its worldwide release this week. Early indications are that the film has garnered generally positive Reviews and has so far grossed US$69M from its production budget of US$190M. 

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a successful video game developer and the creator of The Matrix video game trilogy based on faint albeit recurring memories of Neo. At a local coffee shop, Anderson comes into contact with Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss), married to Chad (Chad Stahelski) and with two young boys but with no recollection of her past, on which Anderson based Trinity, a character in his game. Anderson struggles at times to differentiate between what he perceives as his reality from his dreams. His therapist (Neil Patrick Harris) prescribes him blue pills to suppress such occurrences, which one day he just stops taking.

Anderson operates a programme simulation called a modal, a testing environment, created to develop game characters. A girl named Bugs (Jessica Henwick) learns that the modal is running old code in a loop, that shows when Trinity first found Neo within the original Matrix. Bugs discovers a programme manifesting Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and helps free him before Anderson's business partner, Smith (Jonathan Groff), can erase the modal. After discovering his location, Bugs and Morpheus extract Anderson from the Matrix and learn that Smith is actually Agent Smith (as portrayed by Hugo Weaving in the first three films).

Neo wakes up in a pod covered in a gel like substance and with wires and probes protruding from his arms, chest, back, neck and mouth. He observes Trinity confined in another one nearby, as machines dispatched by Bugs to retrieve and transport him to Bugs' ship, and into the human stronghold, Io. There, he meets Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), who tells him that sixty years have passed in the real world since the Machine War, and that human survivors have joined forces with machines that defected to join human society. Though Neo is adamant he wants to rescue Trinity, Niobe opposes and orders Neo to stay out of the Matrix and imprisons him. Bugs and her crew disobey the order and bust Neo out of his cell in order that he can free Trinity.

Neo, Bugs and the crew enter the Matrix, where they are confronted by Smith and other exile programs including The Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) who want the Matrix restored to its earlier format. A fight breaks out in an abandoned warehouse, and Neo battles Smith, ultimately gaining the upper hand as he steadily regains his hand to hand combat capabilities. They leave and locate Tiffany working in her motorcycle workshop, but just as Neo begins talking to her, his therapist appears and immobilises Neo by manipulating time to slow motion. He reveals his identity as the Analyst, a programme designed to study the human mind. He explains that after Neo and Trinity died, he was able to resurrect the pair to study them, by rebuilding their bodies, which explains why they have only aged twenty years in the last sixty. In doing so, he found that suppressing their memories but keeping them close produced an efficient, power-producing Matrix, resistant to the anomalies that resulted in the previous versions failing. Neo's release has destabilised the system and threatened a reboot of the Matrix, according to the Analyst, who has bought time from his superiors, whom he convinced that Neo would voluntarily return to his pod to avoid putting Trinity's life at risk.

Neo and Bugs forcibly exit the Matrix when another ship sent by Niobe brings their ship back to Io. Niobe takes Neo to Sati (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), an exile programme he previously met, whose parents were killed by the machines. Looking to avenge their death, Sati helps concoct a plan to free Trinity. Back in the Matrix at the cafe where Neo and Tiffany first met, Neo offers a deal with the Analyst that if he fails to convince Trinity to remember her past and voluntarily leave the Matrix, he would agree to return to his pod. The Analyst accepts. As Neo tries to convince Tiffany she's part of the Matrix, her family appears tempting her to stay. She initially gives in but before she has exited the cafe she rejects their pleas recalling her true identity as Trinity. As the Analyst attempts to kill her, Smith appears seeking revenge for his own imprisonment, which gives Neo, Trinity, and the others the chance to escape. What follows is a high octane chase through the streets with a swarm of sentient computer beings hot on the tail of Trinity and Neo riding on the back of a motorcycle as sentient bodies are shot, crushed, run over, mowed down and obliterated and cars explode all around them. 

Being the last waiting to be extracted, Neo and Trinity become stranded on the roof top of a skyscraper as heavily armed helicopters shoot off countless rounds of machine gun fire at them. Holding hands, they leap off the roof top hoping Neo is able to harness his ability to fly, but instead Trinity gains the ability, and flies them to safety. With their recently discovered control over the Matrix, both return to meet the Analyst, who now has taken on a submissive stance. They jokingly thank him for the opportunity of a fresh start, which they intend to use to remodel the Matrix as they deem most appropriate. The Analyst looks down but not out, as Neo and Trinity fly off into the sunset.  

'The Matrix Resurrections' is essentially a love story wrapped up in computer code with fast paced action, stunning visuals, and plenty of nods to the original trilogy using actual footage lifted straight from those first three films to remind or educate the viewer of what came before and how we got to this point. The film will no doubt please fans of those first three instalments, and it is easily the best since 1999's 'The Matrix' first hit cinema's screens with its bullet-time, red pill/blue pill, wire-fu fight sequences that defined an era of action Sci-Fi movies. The strong cast here also are a return to form for Reeves and Moss who especially have chemistry that is clearly evident in every scene they share together. At a running time of two and a half hours the film moves a long at a swift pace and never leaves you wanting, and the ending certainly leaves room for a follow-on movie, so whether this is defined as a sequel and the end of the franchise, or a reboot and the start of something new, remains to be seen. See it on the big screen - you won't be disappointed.

'The Matrix Resurrections' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

DE GAULLE : Tuesday 25th May 2021.

'DE GAULLE' which I saw earlier this week at my local independent movie theatre, is an M Rated French biographical historical drama film Written and Directed by Gabriel Le Bomin whose previous feature film making credits take in 'Fragments of Antonin' in 2006, 'Beyond Suspicion' in 2010, and 'Our Patriots' in 2017 as well as a number of short films, TV movies and television series documentaries. This film was released in its native France back in early February 2020, and only since early May has it been on a limited release in Australia, having so far generated mixed or average Reviews, and collected US$7.5M at the global Box Office, off the back of a US$12.5M production budget.

The film opens up in early May 1940 as Charles de Gaulle (Lambert Wilson) and his wife Yvonne (Isabelle Carre) wake up from their slumber as the sun beats down through the curtains of their bedroom somewhere in rural France. After breakfast with their three children Anne, Philippe and Elisabeth (Clemence Hittin, Felix Back and Lucie Rouxel respectively), Charles is being helped by Yvonne into his military attire before leaving for Montcornet where following two days of fierce fighting de Gaulle's tanks forced the German infantry to retreat to Caumont, the action bringing only temporary relief and doing little to slow the spearhead of the German advance. Nevertheless, it was one of the few successes the French enjoyed while suffering defeats elsewhere across the country. This small victory buoyed de Gaulle, and in recognition for his efforts he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General on 23rd May 1940 by the French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud (Olivier Gourmet).

On 5th June, Prime Minister Reynaud appointed de Gaulle a government minister, as Under-Secretary of State for National Defence and War, with particular responsibility for coordination with the British. Four days later de Gaulle flew to London to meet with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Tim Hudson) for the first time. At that initial meeting de Gaulle suggests to Churchill that the British and French armed forces should join up to stand against the Germans on a united front. Meanwhile, Marshal Philippe Petain (Philippe Laudenbach) the Deputy Prime Minister was strongly opposed to de Gaulle's suggestions to keep fighting on, as was General Maxime Weygand (Alain Lenglet), instead coming to the conclusion that France had already lost the war to the might of the German war machine and they should accept their fate and seek an armistice with Hitler, before Paris is overwhelmed and destroyed. 

After another couple of meetings with Churchill and his Cabinet over the ensuing couple of weeks in which there is much toing and froing of the joint forces notion, on 16th June de Gaulle was in a meeting at 10, Downing Street when Churchill agrees to an Anglo/French political union. Meanwhile, Paul Reynaud resigned as Prime Minister after the French/British Union had been rejected by his Cabinet and Petain had been instated as the new Prime Minister with the remit to seek an armistice with Nazi Germany, so effectively bringing to an end de Gaulle's ministerialship. 

De Gaulle visited Reynaud, who still had control of secret government funds until the handover of power the next day. On the morning of 17th June, he flew to London on a British aircraft with 100,000 gold francs in secret funds provided to him by Reynaud. De Gaulle landed at an airport west of London just after 12:30 on 17th June. He met with Churchill at around 15:00 and Churchill offered him four minutes of broadcast time over the BBC airwaves. They both knew about Petain's broadcast earlier that day in which he said that 'the fighting must end' and that he had approached the Germans for terms. 

The next day, 18th June, the British Cabinet were reluctant to agree to de Gaulle giving a radio address, as Britain was still in communication with the Petain government about the fate of the French fleet. The Minister of Information had an advance copy of the text of the address, to which there were no objections. De Gaulle's Appeal speech of 18th  June exhorted the French people not to be demoralised and to continue to resist the occupation of France. Thereafter, he declared that he would broadcast again the next day. After the armistice was signed on 21st June 1940, de Gaulle spoke later the following evening on 22nd June to denounce it. The newly formed French government declared him compulsorily retired from the French Army (with the rank of Colonel) on 23rd June, and ordered him to return home to France immediately to stand trial for treason. 

While all of this was going on, Yvonne and her three children were busying themselves trying to evade the onslaught of the German forces across France. They travel from small village to village seeking safe refuge and eventually evacuate to the northern French coast where they manage to board an overloaded Dutch ferry boat that was the last one to leave and which eventually takes them to Falmouth and hence on to London, where after some six weeks apart (aside from the odd fleeting visit in between time) the family are reunited with Charles. Anne, their youngest daughter was born with Down Syndrome and she died in her parents arms at the age of twenty in 1948. After this Yvonne set up a charity, 'La fondation Anne-de-Gaulle', to help children with disabilities. 

Lambert Wilson plays a very credible de Gaulle here, as both the war mongering never say die French Freedom Fighter and as the caring loyal family man to his wife and three children. However, it is the governmental and military posturing that is the main stay of this real life story, the back and forth between de Gaulle and Churchill creates a real sense of urgency and provides an insight into the relationship that developed between the two men over those two weeks or so in June 1940. The flight of de Gaulle's family through France on the other hand is a let down and feels second rate to the main story here, adding little by way of emotional heft that the viewer can invest in. The supporting cast here all give more than reasonable performances, and the production values on display here more than adequately take you back to 1940's war torn France and Britain, but for me the story was somewhat disjointed and laboured the back and forth a little too much particularly during the second act. 

'De Gaulle' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE TRANSLATORS : Tuesday 22nd September 2020.

'THE TRANSLATORS' ('Les Traducteurs') is an M Rated French thriller that I saw at my local independent cinema earlier this week. Directed and Written by Regis Roinsard in only his second feature film making outing since 2012's 'Populaire', this film has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far since going on general release in its native France at the end of November last year.

Our film opens up with the camera homing in on various people who seems to be travelling from all over Europe to ultimately congregate somewhere in France, as three stretched limo's all pull up outside some huge lavish chateau in the French countryside, out of which alight a mixed bunch of nine different nationalities. At the same time, Eric Angstrom (Lambert Wilson), announces in a media conference that his publishing house has been granted the rights to publish the third book in a massively popular and best selling 'Dedalus' trilogy series. Following the international success of books one and two 'The Sting of Rebecca' and 'The Poisoned Kiss', this third title 'The Man Who Did Not Want To Die' by author Oscar Brach is keenly awaited and hotly anticipated the world over. The next step in the process is to have the heavily guarded manuscript translated in to multiple languages for a simultaneous worldwide release on the same day sometime in the first quarter of the following year. 

And so arriving at the chateau there are nine translators from England, Russia, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, China and Greece. They are met and welcomed to their new hideaway home for the next two months by Rose-Marie Houeix (Sara Giraudeau), Angstrom's Assistant, who shows them the swimming pool, the ten pin bowling alley, where they'll eat with food provided by a five star chef, drink wine from the extensive cellar, and how each of the ensuite rooms is bigger than her apartment. However, each of the translators is to surrender their mobile phones, any recording devices or other technology, internet access is blocked, and there are to be no comings or goings from the chateau for the duration of their stay. They are in complete lockdown, shut off from the outside world. Their focus for the first month is to translate all four hundred or so pages of the manuscript and for the second month to review and fine tune their translations. For eleven hours a day they will work on their translations, surrounded by a stacked library full of reference books, all the while closely monitored by armed guards. They'll be done and home by Christmas. 

And so the nine are made up of a Russian woman, Katerina Anisinova (Olga Kurylenko) claiming to be a Dedalus #1 fan and channeling the doomed heroine of the series Rebecca; the flamboyant Italian, Dario Farelli (Riccardo Scarmarcio); the depressed Dane who harbours a deep seated grudge against her family and who ever only wanted to write but is no good at it, Helene Tuxen (Sidse Babett Knudsen); the stuttering Spaniard, Javier Casal sporting a broken wrist with it in plaster (Edouardo Noriega); the punk Portuguese girl, Telma Alves (Maria Leite); the oldest of the group and a Marxist Greek, Konstantinos Kedrinos (Manolis Mavromatakis); the Chinese pragmatist, Chen Yao (Frederic Chau); the uptight German, Ingrid Korbel (Anna-Maria Sturm); and finally the youngest of the bunch and also claiming to be a #1 fan whose aim in life is to meet the author is the English lad Alex Goodman (Alex Lawther).

And so the gang of nine settle down to their translation task at hand, and initially everything appears to go swimmingly. Progress is made, the group bond over dinner, and end up collectively singing 'What the World Needs Now, is Love Sweet Love', they swim, use the exercise equipment, and ten pin bowl together, while drinking wine and champagne. Then the next day, Angstrom receives a e-mail on his mobile phone stating that some undisclosed person has the first twenty pages of the manuscript which will be leaked online unless he pays up the ransom money of €5M within 24 hours. Immediately, the finger of suspicion points at one of the nine - for who else has had access to the manuscript, but how did they get it out, and who has the technology at hand to send out an e-mail of demands. Angstrom is none too pleased to say the very least, and immediately tasks his security detail to raid each room of the nine translators and turn it upside-down to uncover any clues as to the identity of the culprit. Beds and pillows are upturned and torn apart, minibar fridges are emptied all over the floor, and personal belongings are ransacked. 

Needless to say, Angstrom calls the culprits bluff, and when the 24th hour clicks over, he has the team of nine stripped down to their underwear all lined up against a bookcase to see how one of the nine will send an e-mail while under such scrutiny. But under his watchful gaze, an e-mail is received saying that the next one hundred pages will now be released online and the ransom has now increased to €20M. He's furious of course and gradually the dynamic within the group begins to implode with fingers being pointed at likely suspects, nationalities are insulted, cultures questioned, the lights and heat are turned off and ultimately guns are raised and inevitably shots are fired. 

The reveal comes about mid-way through in a fast forward sequence set in a police interview room, where Angstrom is asking questions of the perpetrator in an attempt to understand his/her motives. The latter half then reveals who the perpetrator is, how he/she made it work in flashback, and introduces us to the author George Fontaine (Patrick Bauchau), who publishes under the pseudonym Oscar Brach, who owns a small book store in some small coastal town in northern France. Again in flashback, we see Angstrom collecting the manuscript from Fontaine and initially the meeting is very civil, until Fontaine reveals that he is also courting other publishers and that he never signed an exclusive deal with Angstrom's publishing house anyway. Needless to say it doesn't end well for Fontaine. 

We then go back to the chateau and phase two of the ransom deadline has now past, and Angstrom receives another e-mail saying that the next one hundred pages of the manuscript will be released online and the ransom has now increased to €80M. Out of desperation he orders his colleagues back at his publishing house to release the funds from his own account and to liquidate his stocks and shares to cover the ransom demand.

Fast forwarding to that same interview room with Angstrom wearing a hidden wire with the Police authorities intently listening in, the perpetrator comes clean as to his/her true identity, but very cleverly leans over to be right in Angstrom's face and places his hand on his chest so silencing the hidden microphone at that crucial moment. When he's done, he leans back in chair removing his hand just as Angstrom blurts out that he killed Fontaine, believing him to be the author, when all along it's the person sat opposite him. The Police burst in as Angstrom is straddling the perpetrator on the desk with his hands around their neck. Angstrom has got his comeuppance as a greedy manipulator of literary fortunes, and a murderer, and has lost all of his wealth in the process. And the real author walks free, job done as was his/her plan all along. 

'The Translators' feels like something straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, except the usual super sleuth detective is here replaced by a somewhat nefarious publishing tycoon, and if you liked Rian Johnson's 'Knives Out' from last year, your sure to be suitably impressed by this whodunnit. The script is strong enough to keep you guessing right up until the ending with plenty of red herrings, twists, turns and jumps forwards and backwards in time to maintain the interest and make the 105 minute running time never leaving you wanting. For its reported fairly meagre US$10M budget, the production values are solid. The international cast give strong and convincing performances, albeit that some their back stories are barely touched upon which given the twelve principle characters here is hardly surprising really, but its a tough ask to become invested in a character when you know so little about them. This is a tense thrilling ride that goes off course just a little in the second act but reclaims that lost ground in the final act when the big reveal, the motives, and the back story all come together. 

'The Translators' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-