Robots VS Kung Fu: The Matrix Grindhouse Edition

Im not familliar with grindhouse movies but basically this was The Matrix as a 70s kung fu movie. This made for a very entertaining edit. The only thing I am on the fence about is the liberal uses of Johnny Nemonic, because it became a bit confusing. But maybe thats just me.

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 one was a little tough to review. I'm not a connoisseur of grindhouse films, and fanedits is what's introducing me to the genre.

It's gloriously, gleefully terrible. So, where is that deliberate, and where accidental (and not happy accident). I re-watched with the faneditor's commentary to put that into context.

With that context, the edit is great. The grain & scratch filters are obvious from the start, the liberal use of other movies (mostly Johnny Mnemonic--a guilty pleasure of mine) and unfinished footage jumps out and mostly works. There's a few cuts of behind the scenes that felt a bit over done. The bad audio jumps are just part of the fun, even though a good chunk of Morpheus' lines *really* stand out. The bad color grading, bad camera angles, screwed up continuity is giggle-inducing.

It was fun seeing how a different edit can change the thrust of the story and characters. It took the commentary viewing to really get where matrixgrindhouse was going with it though.

The fake trailers were great. Those really helped you get into the mindset. You could almost smell the burnt/stale popcorn and feel the stick floor by the time the movie started.

In the final assessment, I greatly enjoyed this edit. There were numerous laugh out loud moments. Now I want to see some of those previewed movies.

I loved the "cheap" feel of the footage, the use of behind the scenes was great! Seeing the wires and missed punches/kicks was genius. Overall i felt like it was a solid edit, and really felt like a shoestring budget version of the matrix. The only thing i really didn't like and why i gave the narrative a lower score was the fact i don't really think the Johnny Mnemonic scenes worked very well, it through the story flow off, and i had a little trouble understanding what was happening.

I'm glad to have watched this fanedit just as a novelty because it was such a massive undertaking and its such a different viewing experience than the source material, but I didn't really like it that much and probably won't watch it again. I love the Matrix, but don't like grindhouse movies. So, me not liking this edit is something I probably could have predicted, but I was just curious at what you'd change. I actually thought the small changes were more interesting than the large ones (ie "that was a long time ago"). But all in all, it was just too weird for me.

My favorite part was the preview of Rush Hour (Dynamite Twins?).

Scoring the editing and quality is weird since its intentionally bad. But the more important part -
Enjoyment: 7
Original: 10
This isn't a fanfix, so comparing it to the original may not be the best comparison. I did like this fanedit better than any other grindhouse style movie I've seen, so that's something positive.