Matrix DeZIONized, The

Hrumpff April 12, 2010 @ 4:37 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

This edit proved that Reloaded & Revolutions could work as a single movie narrative without the Zion scenes-- even without giving closure to Morpheus, Niobe, and Link-- but the execution was shoddy at best. The picture quality was a little off, and the visual cuts were obvious, which is a shame because it was otherwise a serviceable edit.

Overall, with some tweaking, I'd recommend it for those who'd prefer to skip the Zion scenes entirely. A good effort, but it doesn't replace the originals for me.

I think I much prefer watching this to watching the sequels in their original form. There are a couple things I didn’t like, but overall a very entertaining edit!

Technical quality – 9/10 – video seemed sharp, black levels were deep. Audio was good too.

Editing – 8/10 – there weren’t any hard cuts (except for one, it may have been intentional), but I didn’t care much for the fade to black edits which probably showed up at least ten times. They kind of made the movie seem edited.

Presentation – 10/10 – cool animated menus with sound. Very nice. A few trailers thrown in as well, and some snazzy cover art.

Entertainment – 8/10 – the idea of cutting Zion is creative, and allows for a completely different take on the movies. Luckily, the edit didn’t lose too much momentum when it transitioned from Reloaded to Revolutions. There were a few things that I wish had been fixed: Neo’s whole too-cool-for-school attitude, which Spicediver already talked about. Unlike him, though, I think it can be fixed just be simply editing out some of his lines and moves. Some other poor scripting also stayed in, especially the Merovingian’s painful dialogue about the French language. If some of this stuff had been cut, the edit would have been much more enjoyable. As it is, because of this and the fade-to-black cuts, I can’t give it 10/10, despite its creative story flow. Altogether, good job though.

Overall – 8/10

Review by QuickCut — May 15, 2012 @ 3:02 AM

From a fanedit point of view it was expertly done. I really liked the beginning of the movie where we see the last scene from the first film in the beginning. Nicely done. This is the most action packed piece of editing I’ve ever seen. Most editors would shy away from this cause it may cause audience exhaustion, I almost felt exhausted after watching it haha. Also kudos for the cover designers, they’re all very well done… it’s hard to choose which one to use.
In my view though this film was a tad long for what it is – which mostly felt like non-stop fighting scenes BUT I did enjoy this cut much more than the original. And I would whole heartily recommend folks to watch this version over the original 2 films. Well done!

Review by Laserdisc — August 29, 2008 @ 5:31 PM

Very expertly done edit! It’s exactly what it sounds like: The Matrix without Zion. This is a considerably faster, more action-packed movie than the originals were, and the plot is a lot easier to follow. The one drawback is that it does feel somewhat incomplete, due to a lot of loose ends never being tied up. For example, Morpheus completely disappeared some time during the third act, so it still lacks closure. However, the ride to the end is a lot better this time, so I would definitely rather watch this than have to sit through both of the originals. It felt a lot more in tune with the first movie in terms of pace and overall style, which is undoubtedly thanks to the fact that there is no Zion footage at all (except for Neo recieving the chip from the oracle, although through clever editing we’re actually lead to believe this happened on the Nebuchadnezzar).

I can’t quite say this is the ultimate cut of the Matrix sequels, because frankly I’m still looking for that. In the mean time though, this is definitely a much more satisfying sequel, even if it’s still a little off. I gave it 4/5 stars. You get most of the good parts and none of the bad in a 2 1/2 hour movie, which starts off running and never loses its feet. The annoying plot twists are still in there, and the ending still leaves a fair amount of story threads dangling (which was a problem in the original, as well), but overall this is a solid sequel.

Review by Timstuff — September 11, 2008 @ 10:28 PM