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| The Wachowski brothers, Keanu Reeves,
Laurence Fishburne, Bill Pope, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yuen Wu-Ping |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Joel
Silver (producer): What's great about the Wachowski brothers is
that they know the shots they want exactly. They may spend a
lot of time looking for the shot, but once they've found it, that's
all they shoot. And this is great, 'cause you don't get all that coverage
other directors always shoot: what you see is what you're gonna get!
A
feature-length documentary on the making of the movie The Matrix.
 Arguably
the single DVD title that first opened up the medium and its many possibilities
to a wider audience, The Matrix was an early-2000 release from
Warner designed to showcase not only the movie but the medium (and individuals'
home theater systems) as well. Like countless others, The Matrix
was my most frequently used demo DVD for showing off my first surround
sound setup to whomever set foot in my living room, and explaining to
countless baffled skeptics how it was not annoying at all to have a
little white rabbit pop up in the frame every ten minutes or so. Nearly
two years onward, the medium and its popularity has progressed significantly,
and as more and more movie titles were treated to special 2-disc DVD
editions, more and more voices cried out for a renewed DVD release of
that ground-breaking action/sci-fi/kung fu movie.
Warner has now met these voices halfway: seemingly hesitant to attract
any criticism for double-dipping their DVD releases (as several other
major distributors have been doing for some time now), this new DVD
The Matrix Revisited is a companion disc rather than a replacement
for the previous release. It doesn't contain the movie itself, but holds
a 122-minute documentary (the title feature The Matrix Revisited)
and some other left-overs, some for promotion of the upcoming sequels
and video games, others presenting bits and pieces of info and B-roll
and effects footage. The feature documentary holds lots of great fly-on-the-wall
footage shot during production, and presents an astonishingly complete
picture of the production process, moving chronologically ahead from
inception through principal photography to release. The movie's fans
will certainly eat this up, but as a documentary, it doesn't really
have the immediacy that can make the backgroungs presented in the documentary
more spell-binding than the movie itself. Dominated by talking heads,
it will satisfy those longing for more background on their favorite
flick, but will turn few casual viewers' heads. |
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Identical
DVD editions are available for Region 1 and Region 2. The Matrix
Revisited is available as a separate release or packaged together
with the original The Matrix
DVD.
The
framing for the documentary is sadly fullscreen (approx. 1.33:1), with
excerpts from the movie letterboxed non-anamorphically at 2.35:1. It's
a pity that the 16:9 widescreen format wasn't chosen for this documentary's
visual presentation, as most die-hard The Matrix fans are certainly
accustomed to widescreen viewing, and will regret the lack of resolution
in the non-anamorphic widescreen movie clips held within. The presentation
otherwise looks fine, with video footage shot on-set exhibiting a slightly
faded look, and the more recent shots looking clear and vibrant.
The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, but the discreet channels
are really only used for presenting the clips from the movie itself.
The documentary itself only makes use of the front soundstage, and sounds
fine.
The
feature documentary itself being the prime extra as a companion
piece to the original The Matrix DVD, this release also carries
quite a few other bits and pieces of background and promotion, but little
that will truly astonish the way the original DVD release did.
Cynics will argue that this release is little more than a marketing
ploy to start creating awareness for the upcoming sequel The Matrix
Reloaded. Impatient fans hoping for spectacular sequel previews
will be disappointed however, as the mini-featurette 'What is
to Come?' runs only a little over three minutes, only the first half
of which presents what looks like stunts and effects tests and training
footage, followed by a useless promotional segment on the upcoming video
game. Another mini-featurette takes a self-congratulatory look
at the movie's popular website, hosted by producer Joel Silver, who
shows up again to promote the anime comic book series Animatrix
in yet another slight featurette.
More interesting (even scarily so) is the five-minute featurette
'True Followers', which features eight obsessive fans of the movie
in desperate need of a life. The Bathroom Fight / Wet Wall
features director of photography showing us around the hugely claustrophobic
sets built for this memorable sequence (which also featured in the
'Spotlight on Location' featurette on the original DVD). A nice
addition but hardly anything new. Finally, But wait, There's
More! presents a five-minute montage of random footage no one
could find an earthly purpose for in either the movie's first DVD
release or the documentary. Accompanied by yet another annoying
techno score, it's nothing to stay home for but will at least give
the movie's most rabid fans the chance to yell out: 'Look! A behind-the-scenes
shot I don't think I've seen before!!' Anything for completion's
sake...
As the original DVD carried its most worthwhile extras in the form of
pill-shaped (and poorly hidden) Easter Eggs, it's no surprise to learn
this second disc carries some hidden features of its own. Seek and you
shall find (among other things) the memorable theatrical trailer
and a nifty Jukebox that plays over 40 tunes! It's a pity though
that this opportunity wasn't taken to explore more innovative new features,
or more stuff like scene breakdowns using the angle function or other
more high-end extras one would really expect from this continuation
of a groundbreakding DVD title. The
main menu screen presents an animated collage of imagess and artwork from
the movie's production. Several features are hidden in the menu screens
as Easter Eggs.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Matrix Revisited.
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to return to the front page.
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