Quick recap: This is not the real world. The world you live in is just a computer program and we are all slaves.  Happy Tuesday!

Stop. Collaborate and listen

Fun (?) fact: It isn’t until the very end that Keanu Reeves speaks more than five lines of dialogue in a row.

My thoughts: Picture it: The year was 2000 and my small town had just caught Matrix fever. It was one of those movies everyone could agree was awesome. Whether it was about the fight scenes, the deep philosophy, or the very obvious religious message, it was near impossible to find someone who didn’t like it. I myself was a huge fan for many years and even saw the sequels, which I would later come to regret. So, how does the movie stack up 15 years later?

In short, it doesn’t. Everything I remembered was there, but I am now looking at it as an adult, not some sheltered kid. The most obvious difference from 15 year old me is that I would absolutely take the blue pill. The scenes of the people being grown in pods were frightening, but only if you know about them. This world may be the Matrix, but it is my Matrix and it’s pretty nice. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose. So this time around, I guiltily found myself identifying with Neo as he is trying to come to grasp of this terrible truth, and even more so with Cypher who wanted to remember nothing. I mean, saving the world is cool and admirable and all, but not so much if no one really wants it.

The fight scenes were still pretty cool and I was surprised by how well they have held up. This was the part I was expecting to let me down the most and it ended up being my favorite part of an otherwise (now) disappointing movie.

Finally, what surprised (and angered) me most was Trinity’s storyline. Here we have a badass chick, willing to risk her very life for the cause she believes in. Except that, really, she’s just in love. Why the hell is there a love story? Of all the cool things that could’ve happened, Trinity is reduced to a love story. It’s even her destiny to be in love with Neo. I don’t remember my thoughts at the time I first watched this, but now it seems like such a blatantly bad idea. Was the reasoning to put that in there so girls could like the movie? Or was it to cement Neo’s legacy? Either way, gross.

Final review: 3/5. I feel that it’s important to note the cultural impact this movie had, even though I didn’t get much out of it now. I caught myself saying ‘glitch in the system’ just the other day, so it has become ingrained in me to some extent.

Up next: Raging Bull

Quick recap: A cyborg, played by the former governor of California (what a country!), travels back to the 1980s to assassinate Sarah Connor, whose unborn son will one day secure a victory against the machines and save humanity.

The Terminator also murders Bill Paxton, so he can’t be all that bad.

Fun (?) fact: O.J. Simpson was considered for the title role, but producers felt that he was ‘too nice’.

I for one welcome our new cyborg overlords

My thoughts: I have never seen The Terminator before ,although it is one of those movies that is so iconic it felt like I’ve watched it dozens of times. I tend to reject movies that have been gendered into ‘guy movies’ and ‘ girl movies’ because I feel it alienates people that might otherwise enjoy something if it hadn’t been labeled as such.

On the other hand, The Terminator is totally a ‘guy movie’. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course. I am not a guy and I still enjoyed it, although the action sequences were a little too violent for my taste. I was very interested in the dystopian future (FYI 14 years from now) and also trying to figure out the whole time travel thing. Kyle Reese is from the future to protect Sarah Connor so that she may one day give birth to John Connor, the humanity’s savior. But he also travels back in time because he is totally in love with her and subsequently, they conceive the baby. Everything becomes all wibbly wobbly timey wimey at this point and it hurt my brain to think about it too much.

I think what impressed me most about The Terminator were the special effects. If I hadn’t been watching this with my husband, who apparently knows this movie very well,I would’ve missed most of this stuff because, it being 2015, I sometimes forget that computers haven’t always been around. The scene where the terminator takes out his eye is both gross and awesome.

I lost focus towards the end because it became more of a ‘just die, already’ sort of thing, with the terminator having been reduced to nothing more than a metal skeleton. It sort of reminded me of the black night in Monty Python, which was probably not what the director was going for.

’tis but a scratch

Final review: 3/5. I get bored by constant gunfights, but I’m hoping the sequel will be better.

Up next: The House is Black