Though I remembered a lot about this movie, I thought it best to do a quick re-watch* before the sequel appears. It was still very, very good, and as we were watching it at home we could pause for bathroom breaks.**
Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99) Where watched: at home with Matt
*Although with a 149-minute movie, there’s no quick re-watch. **Inadvertently, we paused 10 seconds from halfway through the movie. For those curious, it comes during the scene where Thor, Rocket and Groot visit Eitri.
My 1999 self watched the Wachowski’s The Matrix in the theater and what my 2019 self recalls about that movie is the feeling of a massive shrug. Having just re-watched the film as my 2019 self, I can say I’m not quite sure what my 1999 self was thinking* because WOW there is a lot to like about this film. It is still setting the standard for Sci-Fi visuals, Keanu Reeves’ performance isn’t nearly as wooden as I was remembering, and it has a strong female character (Carrie-Anne Moss) who is a great fighter.**
Verdict: Recommended
Cost: free from the Multnomah County library Where watched: at home, in preparation for Filmspotting’s 9 from 99 discussion.
*And really, this goes for all aspects of my 1999 self, not just pertaining to this movie. I thought it was weird I remembered not one thing about the film, so much so that I wondered if maybe I hadn’t actually watched it. But no, there it was listed in the 1999 journal. I watched it on June 23. I wrote nothing about the movie in the entry from that day. **Though alas, she exists only for the male lead. That “I love you” scene was probably the weakest one of the movie. Also, props for a somewhat diverse cast to support that male lead.
Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men is a good action movie, of the regular-people type.* For me though, it suffered from me having read the book which goes deeper into the relationships than the movie does.** The movie achieves a tense vibe throughout, but I found I didn’t care about the people because I knew too little about them.***
Cost: Free from the Multnomah County Library Where watched: at home in preparation for Filmspotting’s 2019 March Madness: Best of the 2000s
*Any of the Bourne films? I couldn’t do all that stuff. I could do the action stuff in this film. **I read the book over 20 years ago, which is a sign of a book with staying power. ***This also suffers from the White Guys in Suits problem (although in this case it was a Radical Insurgents in Black problem) in that I couldn’t tell some men apart and a key plot point flew by me.
