Robots VS Kung Fu: The Matrix Grindhouse Edition

I really struggled writing this review.

The good news is that the editor succeeds in pulling off a grindhouse version of The Matrix. It's obvious that he worked very hard on this and the end result is commendable. Unfortunately, I didn't quite enjoy this as much as I thought I would. Perhaps it's because I'm not a fan of the grindhouse genre, and it's a bit more straightforward (from a comedic standpoint) than The War of the Stars.

Stuff I liked: The intro cast credits made me smile. I generally liked most of the music choices. There were some actual literal laughs out loud on my part. The Animatrix stuff. The ending(s) were fantastic and easily bumped my narrative rating up a few points. The DVD is really well done, and I'm definitely going to listen to the commentary (the parts I sampled were quite interesting).

Stuff I didn't care for: The intro trailers (again, this is more my disinterest in the whole genre more than anything). The melting film parts (seen it before). The Johnny Mnemonic stuff (I'm not sure why but it didn't engage me). The changes to the narrative (maybe my fault, but there was stuff I didn't get until I read the description on IFDb).

Overall, I'm glad I watched this, and I did enjoy it, but not as much as I expected. I do wonder if I had seen this before WOTS if I might have liked it better, because I couldn't help but compare the two. And it's no fault of the editor that my tastes skew more towards WOTS.

Cautiously recommended.

There be some funny shit in this here cake. Ain't gonna give surprises away, though.

Music adds and subtracts, entertainment-wise. At times, a goofy and well-timed tune will turbo-boost your smile, or undo your non-laugh. Fucking excellent.

However, some background music comes across as cheesier and cheaper-sounding than it needs to be—my personal preference favors grindhouse myujik that has a bit more funk, menace, or goofy testosterone. There's a fair degree of musical repetition as well as homogeneity, and some of the lesser tunes draw attention to themselves while making the dialogue sound dim. Such features could be credit toward grindhouseyness, but here they make the viewing challenging in parts—which is a shame, given the many hilarious moments in this soup, or dammit, was it cake we were metaphor-pimping?

Some scenes could do without any music at all. The sound effects and visual gags would have been humor enough.

Dude, with a little more attention to mixing sound and delving for some apropos songs, this edit could have been simply dangerous.

njoijoi: 7 pelvic aerothrusts.

Not completely what I was expecting -- beyond being a grindhouse version of Matrix, this is basically an alternate narrative mashing up Johnny Nemonic and Matrix into something new and much more experimental, including a good chunk of the film that is completely dialogue-free. The drive-in style trailers for 90s/00s movies at the beginning were my favourite part, I'd have happily watched a dozen more of those. Still, I wanted to watch this as an alternative to viewing The Matrix for the dozenth time before Part 4 drops and enough of the original narrative is fresh in my mind, so mission accomplished.

This edit was hilarious and brilliant. The whole grindhouse style for this edit worked really well especially when blending those behind the scene footage giving the movie that cheap feel. The humour was top notch and ridiculous. The editing was perfectly awful with bad audio jumps, camera angles, continuities and colour grades adding to the fun, A great addition I loved was the fake trailers especially the one for hitman- it really sets the vibe for the edit well. I also laughed so hard at the ending and overall matrixgrindhouse is a genius and has created a perfect parody Matrix movie.

This was a masterpiece*! (*If you like this kind of thing)

The great thing about the grindhouse genre of fanedits is that every flaw and imperfection actually makes it better!
I was, and am, a huge fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, particularly the early Joel episodes, but all of it. And then onto Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax (and Wrecking Crew) and on and on. So in loving that show there is a certain appreciation one gains for this kind of film-making.

I loved that the subplot with that guy named "Raulph?" that Neo kept calling only kinda made sense. (I think the scenes were from Johnny Mnemonic, but I haven't seen that movie).

I loved that horrible background music drowned out quite a lot of the dialogue!

I loved that you could almost always see the wires during fight scenes! The training sequence between Morpheus and Neo was loooooong. It made me think of an old MST3K movie featuring a lot of rock climbing.

I loved how almost none of Neo's inserted dialogue really flowed or worked at all!! It becomes hysterical at times. It is absolutely fantastic!

With these Grind-House edits, every negative comment becomes a compliment, if you really appreciate these! Don't get me wrong, someone could screw this up and create something very boring and completely without narrative. It takes just exactly the right blend to create a masterpiece of ridiculousness such as this. This is genius! (see also War of the Stars)

I really REALLY loved the ending!!! I laughed for five or ten minutes at it's abruptness, despite the preceding summary/montage.

It takes a genius to create something that feels like an authentic inept early 80s cheap sci-fi movie. I wish MST3K were in the corner of the screen to help me through the dialogue that was drowned out by music :-)

This was brilliant and I hope there is a sequel, as the Coming Attractions promised!