Matrix Re-Linked, The

The Matrix Re-Linked by CTRTL

review by boon23

Prologue:
It’s been a long time since I watched anythign Matrix, mostly caused by my own fanedit effort, which as usual was such an intense ride that it almost deleted any further interest in these movies and also spoiled my objectivity for a long time. Now I won’t compare this edit to my own or to my own decisions, because this has a completely different approach.

As for all my reviews: this is just my personal opinion of this fanedit. I cannot tell anybody else, if he or she will experience it in the same way or the opposite. So my review is not objective and does not reflect the opinion of fanedit.org.

!!!!This review contains heavy spoilers!!!

The edit:
The intention to make this a more focused edit worked well for me. Basically it felt a lot like a less distracting trimmed version of Reloaded, including a few scenes from the Animatrix. Except for one bad edit idea that cuts the speech of Councillor Hamann this was well edited in my opinion. The fanedit feels superior in several scenes to the original, where it successfully trims the unneeded fat, yet it does not make it a great movie. Matrix Re-Linked still has cheese, ultralong fight scenes that feel even longer in a trimmed version and is confusing and unsatisfying as a sequel to THE MATRIX. The Animatrix scenes in the beginning come with the problem that they are animated and nothing animated appears in the later fanedit again. As that it feels unnaturally tacked on, yet not too disturbing for a fan to get in the mood. The animated scenes though seem to introduce a way more radical edit than this actually was.
What I liked best was the shortened version of the Persephone kiss and the shortened architect speech.
This faneditor does not seem to be a newbie, his audio and video edits showed a lot expertise. The image quality was marvelous and so was the sound.
Overall I was able to enjoy this fanedit, especially the second half, when I really started to get in the mood and had lost my Matrix sequel disgust.
editing: 7 of 10 (animated scenes in the beginning don’t really fit to the rest, Councillor Hamann speech just fades when he starts)
entertainment: 6 of 10 (original 6 of 10. What was too long in the original was too short in this fanedit)

Image and video quality:
Image and video quality were great.
Video quality: 10 of 10 (DVD) 6 of 10 (mp4 – the image was mostly good, but showed heavy artifacting in scenes that would have required a higher bitrate)

Audio editing and audio quality:
There were no hard audio cuts. Audio was perfect.
audio editing: 10 of 10
sound quality: 10 of 10
resulting in a 10 of 10 for overall audio

presentation:
The DVD comes animated menus that look a lot cheaper than they actually should , because the faneditor created an awesome trailer/teaser that plays in the background. Unfortunately the buttons look very cheap, spoiling the entire menu fun. There are or done animated chapter menus that would have looked a lot better in 1.78:1 (instead of 2.35:1)with a still menu with no sound. The lower bar on the chapter menus again looks VERY cheap. The faneditor shows a lot of talent care, which he wasted a bit with the menu presentation. The included artwork does the job, yet is a rush job and could have been a lot better with a more effort. There are no extras.
To sum it up:
Talent shows, yet not enough effort went in the presentation. Still: aniamted menus and artwork lift it of course above the average.
resulting in a 6 of 10 for overall presentation

Final result: 7 of 10 (because I stick in this case to my concept of not rating more than 1 star higher than the movie was entertaining for me)
A great firstling that shows a lot of editing skill. Recommended for people interested in the Matrix sequels.