Watching the Matrix trilogy.
When the first Matrix film came out, people seemed to really find the story deep, described it as a work based in postmodern philosophy.
On the surface, it looks like postmodern philosophy because the world of the Matrix is demonstrated to be a construct. But then they go outside of the Matrix and it turns out it's just an illusionary world, but that there is a true world outside. This isn't postmodern philosophy, this is Platonic philosophy. This same story was demonstrated via Plato's Cave Allegory written in Republic where people lived in a cave, and their whole concept of existence was silhouettes on a wall - then they take one guy out of the cave and show him the real world, before putting him back in.
But anyway, it seems the story is more of a backdrop, or framing for the real point of the film - constructing a reality for where their crazy action scenes could take place. In that, I think the film series is successful... This is actually the first time I watched Reloaded all the way through, as I only caught a part of it at a party when I was a lot younger; I barely remember anything from Revolutions except a lot of machine gun fire and yelling.
Like Inception, the story is very exposition heavy in regards to how its subworld works - but Matrix blends the exposition quite well and seamlessly into story; Inception was really just explaining the story the whole way through, and the conflicts were all in the explanation. In other words, Matrix used exposition as a bit of a hand-hold through the story the characters were moving through, while with Inception the exposition was the story.
Also, to comment on the action sequences; they are the first films to use excessive amounts of slow-motion - the thing is, unlike films like 300 and super hero films, it's not just arbitrarily shoved in - the slow motion actually has a logical reason because it's part of Neo's perception. Like Inception, the story was used to kind of provide a world where this kind of crazy action would take place - it's really up to opinion on which one did it better; I prefer the Matrix's approach.
So, the Matrix series, not really my thing, to be honest, but I respect what they did. I like the cyberpunk and action genres. This is a nice blend of the two. Bladerunner is probably the most iconic cuberpunk film, but it's VERY different from The Matrix. As I said earlier, The Matrix holds your hand through the story, Bladerunner and 2049 do as little hand holding as they can possibly get away with and just hope you can keep up.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
