His performance as Morpheus is what Laurence Fishburne will be eternally remembered for but, in all his other years as an actor, Fishburne has tended to play interesting and thought-provoking characters. Fans of the Francis Ford Coppola war film Apocalypse Now (1979) will surely remember a fresh-faced Fishburne appearing as the cocky but charming Tyrone Miller aka Mr. Clean. Determined at a young age to break into the film industry, a then 14-year-old Fishburne lied about his age to get the part in the legendary project – how different his life could have been if this mischievous decision blew up in the young man’s face.

Francis Ford Coppola’s film should have been the catalyst for a rapid rise to stardom, and yet Fishburne’s career trajectory wasn’t as comfortable as one might think. The early part of the 1980s led the actor down a path of minor television and stage appearances, while working as a bouncer in the New York club scene. Such a resolute figure wasn’t deterred though, and it was Coppola once again that gave the actor another break with a supporting role in The Cotton Club (1984), before he popped up in Steven Spielberg’s critically acclaimed film The Color Purple (1985). The 80s were an important part of Fishburne’s apprenticeship, opening the door to the most successful and important decade of his career: the 1990s.

The 90s is the decade that will forever define Laurence Fishburne as a screen presence, and it is in these 10 years that his three career-defining performances are found. What began with King of New York in 1990, ended with his role as Morpheus in The Matrix in 1999. The decade turned him into a bona fide star, one with incredible talent and diversity, and led to formidable success in the new millennium in franchises such as John Wick and ‘Hannibal’. We at The Film Magazine are here for something in particular though, so let’s delve into the three performances that have cultivated an impressive and often underappreciated career.

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1. Boyz n the Hood (1991)

1991 was the year that Larry Fishburne (the name he went by up until 1993) got his first major iconic role in the late John Singleton’s legendary Boyz n the Hood. The film’s undeniable legacy was cemented from the beginning, and it hasn’t waned since.

The film depicts life on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles through the eyes of the young Jason “Tre” Styles 111 (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and his friends Ricky Baker (Morris Chestnut) and Darrin “Doughboy” Baker (Ice Cube), the latter now being a fully-fledged member of the Crips gang after his release from prison. The film’s grittiness and authentic representation of such violent streets is what propelled it into the public eye, but it was the teachings and the wisdom of Fishburne’s character, Jason “Furious” Styles Jr., that made the biggest impact.

Fishburne is tremendous in this authoritative role as the former soldier and current community activist fighting for what he believes and guiding his impressionable son into the light. His various speeches throughout the film – whether a discreet talk with his son or his preaching on the side of the road – are some of Boyz n the Hood’s most intelligent and powerful moments. Boyz n the Hood is etched into black history; furious is the man who knows all too well about the racism and discrimination that his people have faced and continue to experience. And yet, instead of violence, this monk-like figure relies on education, inspiration, and enlightenment to help his brothers and sisters in the fight against the system and the people that enforce it.

The South Central streets are ruthless. They will chew you up and spit you out. Fishburne’s Furious knows this, and his parental instincts go into overdrive when Trey moves in with him. The connection that the two characters develop is meaningful; Trey not only has a caring father figure in his life to keep him on the straight and narrow, but he has an actual father, something that the other boys in the area do not. Fishburne’s interpretation of the character is majestic; his mannerisms, his use of intelligent thought and reasoning, is what separates the character from the rest, and it is this that makes him truly memorable.

A lack of award nominations can’t even derail the impact that Furious Styles had on the future of black cinema, and we’ve seen multiple amalgamations of this character in cinema ever since – you could say that Morpheus is just another design of the same character, teaching the same ideologies for a better and more fruitful future. Fishburne really knocked it out of the park in Boyz n the Hood, and his success in the role is what allowed him to step it up a notch for his next gigantic performance in 1993.

2. What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993)

Brian Gibson’s What’s Love Got to Do with It is a film that needs little introduction. This interpretation of the life and career of the legendary Tina Tuner and her abusive relationship with Ike Tuner is one of the greatest biopics of all time – it never shies away from the violence of their relationship and is as brutal as it is magnificent. Ike and Turner: the band, the relationship, the… romance? Their venomous relationship shrouded an incredibly successful musical partnership that had the pair headlining arenas with the likes of The Rolling Stones and Otis Redding before it all fell apart because of Ike’s self-destructive ego and his cowardly violent streak.

The film’s success couldn’t have been what it was without two monumental performances leading the way, and that’s exactly what it had. Reunited so soon after both appeared in Boyz n the Hood (Bassett portrayed the ex-wife of Fishburne’s character in the 1991 film), Angela Bassett portrays Tina and Laurence Fishburne plays Ike; an incredibly formidable on-screen partnership that led to the pair receiving nominations at that year’s Oscars. What’s Love Got to Do with It begins very softly by exploring the origins of Tina Turner, real name Anna Mae Bullock. The future star’s love of music, her incredible singing voice, and how she fell in love with her soon-to-be husband and eventual nemesis. Even though it’s Tina’s singing voice you hear in the film, Bassett’s perfect lip syncing and expertly performed mannerisms through months of endless mimicking make you think that it truly is her, but it is Fishburne’s performance that ends up being the most iconic.

Laurence Fishburne’s iteration of Ike is the devil incarnate. It is the complete opposite representation of a man than his performance as Furious Styles – to swing so far right with this character is a testament to Fishburne’s diverse acting palette. The film was known as not being absolute gospel, but the material given by Tina herself (from her autobiography “I Tina”), which was then merged with Kate Lanier’s exquisite screenplay, allowed Fishburne to create his version of the man that very much existed in one form or another. The manipulation that began with niceties but was really a form of grooming is truly shocking and vicious, and Fishburne nails this.

It says a lot about Laurence Fishburne’s performance that the man himself, the real-life Ike Turner, praised Fishburne for the role in his own autobiography “Takin’ Back My Name”, even if he did claim the film ruined his reputation – it seems as if you did an awful lot of that yourself, Mr. Turner. Some of the scenes were said to be so tough to film, mentally and physically, that it becomes slightly poignant when you understand that Fishburne was incredibly attentive towards Bassett during these scenes, always wanting her to feel comfortable and at ease. Not only is the man a terrific actor but he’s a genuinely nice guy it seems as well, which only adds to the magnitude of this performance.

Two iconic roles in two years though, it doesn’t get much better than that, does it? If only he knew where these two performances would eventually lead him – to a dystopian future with monstrous acclaim.

3. The Matrix (1999)

For an actor to end the most critically acclaimed decade of their career, as well as wrap up the millennium, with a film like The Matrix is almost unheard of. It could have been very different though, if Will Smith accepted the role of Neo and Sean Connery (yes, you read that right) didn’t choose Entrapment instead – although, let your mind wander for a bit and just imagine that possibility. It was everyone else’s gain though because, looking back, Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves were perfectly cast in The Wachowski’s science fiction epic. With a script and premise that hardly any of the cast and crew understood (apart from Fishburne of course… or at least so he claims), and with the schedule packed with fighting choreography, wire-training, special effects, and managing injuries, it was doomed to fail. Thankfully, it did not.

After Thomas Anderson, “Neo”, begins to accept that things aren’t all as they seem to be in his world of computer hacking, a mysterious woman called Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) explains that a man named Morpheus (Fishburne) has all the answers Neo needs. The wheels of thought in Neo’s brain begin to move, and it’s not long before he meets the mysterious Morpheus who preaches his now infamous red pill, blue pill speech to him, thus beginning a journey of awakening. Morpheus is captain of a ship in the real world, but also acts as the preacher and mentor to the others in his search for “The One”, something he thinks he has found in Neo.

Morpheus is like an amalgamation of several of Laurence Fishburne’s previous characters; the deep-thinking attitude of Furious, the often over confidence of Ike Turner, and the caring nature of Fishburne himself. His portrayal of Morpheus is one of the most recognizable performances in modern cinema; whether it’s the tiny black sunglasses or the long leather coat, Morpheus is as big and important to the franchise as Neo is.

His character has the best dialogue in the series too. Quotes such as “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?”, and “Don’t think you are. Know you are,” as he proceeds to beat Neo black and blue in the now famous dojo scene, are particular standouts. Morpheus is Yoda, he is Gandalf; an all-powerful figure that always has the good of the world in his mind.

Fishburne couldn’t have played the role any better than he did. Without him, The Matrix was a guaranteed bust – that might be brutally honest, but everyone knows it to be true. Say what you like about the sequels – they do run hot and cold – but Morpheus is one of the shining lights in both. The dynamic that Reeves and Fishburne have is undeniable; they are magnetic and propel each other to new heights in each scene they share – an even greater chemistry than the one Fishburne had with Bassett.

It feels almost poetic that Laurence Fishburne would end the decade with a character of such note. After struggling for years for a role of any significance, for him to then enter the 2000s as this iconic figure is a dream so real it becomes truth. Where do you go from success like this though? It’s a task of immense pressure to keep up with appearances, for most people that is, but one that Laurence Fishburne grabbed with both hands and drove forward.

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Keanu Reeves

In the years since The Matrix, Fishburne has found considerable success. Along with his role as Jack Crawford opposite Mads Mikkelsen and his reunion with Reeves in John Wick, Fishburne has also appeared in both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Universe. Whatever future success Fishburne achieves, it will be because of that special decade of the 90s that changed his life forever, and as fans of cinema and the man himself, we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Written by John McDonald

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In addition to his live-action roles, Reeves has lent his voice to numerous animated works, including Toy Story 4, and even appeared as himself in The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run. In the 1990s, Reeves also played bass guitar in the alternative rock band Dogstar.

Despite his impressive body of work, a common refrain from critics and audiences repeated throughout the years is that Reeves is actually a bad actor, who can’t play anybody but himself. That he’s stiff and awkward and even dumb. Though Reeves has certainly missed the mark a few times in his career, most notably with his role as Jonathan Harker in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, to dismiss his entire filmography would be a waste of an incredibly talented and versatile actor who has proven himself time and time again.

So where are you supposed to start with an actor like Keanu Reeves? We at The Film Magazine have put together a shortlist of three particularly special films that best showcase Reeves’ strengths and his range as an actor, as well as his creative evolution over the years. This is Where to Start with Keanu Reeves.

1. My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Released the same year as Point Break, which laid the groundwork for Reeves’ eventual ascent to action stardom, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho introduced Keanu Reeves to adult audiences. The film, partly based upon Shakespeare’s plays about Henry IV and Henry V, stars the late River Phoenix as Mike Waters, a street hustler who suffers from narcolepsy, searching for love and purpose in Portland, Oregon. Reeves plays his best friend Scott Favor, a fellow street hustler and prodigal son of Portland’s mayor, who accompanies Waters on a cross-country road trip in search of his mother.

In My Own Private Idaho, Reeves is cocky, arrogant, elusive, and endlessly charming. He rides a motorcycle, wears a leather jacket. He doesn’t have to try to be cool – he just is. He’s the kind of guy who will never love you as much as you love him, the kind of guy you’d follow around forever if you could. While Phoenix gives an incredibly vulnerable and heartbreaking performance, it’s worth noting that Reeves is the one who has the burden of spouting Shakespeare, something he does really well. It’s over the top and theatrical, and it’s in those moments that you can really see Reeves’ versatility.

His onscreen partnership with Phoenix, someone he was close friends with in real life, adds to the authenticity of both their performances. Acting is, fundamentally, about reacting, and that’s something Reeves does particularly well. This is perhaps best showcased in the campfire scene in which Mike confesses his love for Scott. It’s a really vulnerable scene and relies almost entirely on Reeves’ ability to listen to his scene partner. You can see the wheels in his mind turning, the way his eyes, alight with fire, watch Mike intently. Reeves doesn’t have to say anything. You know how he feels just by looking at him.

My Own Private Idaho is a really wonderful entry in Reeves’s early career and it’s a great choice if you’re looking for something quiet, poignant, and haunting.

2. Speed (1994)

Keanu Reeves was not the first choice to play bomb disposal specialist Jack Tavern in Jan de Bont’s Speed (1994). According to Esquire, the studio first asked Stephen Baldwin of all people. Fox even went through several other actors before finally settling on Reeves, who hadn’t yet become a household name. It would be six years before he’d star in the groundbreaking dystopian sci-fi The Matrix, and his then-recent performances in the costume dramas Dracula and Much Ado About Nothing weren’t well received by critics. But Speed was a turning point for Reeves. Aside from becoming a huge summer blockbuster, the film made him into an action superstar and a bona fide leading man.

With Speed, Keanu Reeves changed what it meant to be a Hollywood action star. “Unlike the impossibly ripped celluloid supermen of the ‘80s like Schwarzenegger and Stallone, Reeves looked human, vulnerable, and life-size,” wrote Chris Nashawaty.

Jack Tavern is badass and heroic and it’s really easy to see why Sandra Bullock’s Annie falls in love with him by the end. His presence is comforting and steady, and he’s never patronizing even when Annie struggles to maintain control of a bus that will blow up if it goes below 50 miles per hour. Speed is as slick and action-packed as it is romantic, and Reeves sells every moment of it.

3. John Wick (2014)

If Speed was a turning point for the career of Keanu Reeves, 2014’s John Wick was his unofficial comeback.

More than a decade after Matrix: Revolutions was released, and following a string of critical and commercial disappointments, Reeves reclaimed his rightful place in Hollywood, reminding us all of what a true movie star looks like.

In the first instalment of this sleek action series, Reeves stars as the titular assassin, who, after a peaceful retirement, is dragged back into the underworld of crime after a group of Russian gangsters, led by Losef Tarasov (Alfie Allen), kill his dog and steal his car. Motivated by revenge and still grieving the death of his wife, Wick embarks on a pulse-pounding, action-packed quest for retribution. The film is often credited with revitalizing the genre and has since grown into an immensely successful franchise.

John Wick is a man of few words. He speaks with his body. The action in the film feels grounded and weighty. When John is wounded, when his gun jams, when he takes a life, we feel it. And it’s all because of how much control Reeves has over his physicality, how in tune he is with his body. Even as the series goes on and action sequences become more elaborate with each new chapter, Reeves makes it all feel real.

Recommended for you: Laurence Fishburne: 3 Career-Defining Performances

As an actor, Keanu Reeves can transform seamlessly into everything from lovable idiot to cocky playboy, action hero to romantic leading man with a simple raise of an eyebrow or the turn of a phrase. He is vulnerable and human. He’s a generous scene partner, always listening and always watching. More than anything, Keanu Reeves represents the best of what cinema can be, and even though his skills are often overlooked he nevertheless continues to captivate. Critic Angelica Bastien said it best, “… Keanu is more powerful than actors who rely on physical transformation as shorthand for depth, because he taps into something much more primal and elusive: the truth.”

Barbie (2023)
Director Greta Gerwig
Screenwriters: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach
Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Rhea Pearlman, Will Ferrell

Barbie (2023), directed by Greta Gerwig and co-written by Gerwig and partner Noah Baumbach, shattered records this weekend, earning the highest-grossing opening of 2023 so far as well as the biggest debut for a female director in history. This film is the biggest thing Greta Gerwig has ever done, a project on a scale she has never attempted before. The result is a stunning, cotton candy-colored rollercoaster ride. It’s messy and it’s weird and, against all odds, it manages to stick the landing. Through it all, Gerwig’s heart never stops beating and her artistic voice remains. It may be a big studio production, but Greta Gerwig is no puppet; this is her movie from start to finish.

Despite her monumental box office achievement, some online discourse has turned against Barbie’s director in recent weeks. Commentators began questioning why she, an indie darling, the face of the mumblecore movement, would trade her small-scale dramas for a big-budget film based on an IP. Articles online featured headlines that read, “Has Barbie Killed the Indie Director?” Ann Manov, writing for The New Statesman, asked, “The director has achieved her ambition of becoming a blockbuster director – but at what cost?” While some applauded her for finding the kind of success that usually eludes female filmmakers, others complained that Gerwig had turned into a corporate shill, a mouthpiece for consumerism, the only person that has ever made a movie about a toy.

It’s really fitting that Gerwig, genius that she is, made a film addressing all of these concerns before they were ever even raised.

After an origin story that is a delightful homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbie begins with a commercial featuring little girls playing with their Barbies. “Isn’t she cool”, Mattel asks us. They go through the history of Barbie, and how she evolved from blond-haired, blue-eyed, stereotypical Barbie to become more diverse and inclusive. Barbie can do anything, Mattel says, just like you! They sell female empowerment – promising little girls the world. In a very purposely unaware moment, Margot Robbie’s Barbie declares that Barbie fixed everything, actually – sexism has been defeated, and the world is now perfect.

In Barbieland, that’s true. Barbieland exists as a parallel universe to the real world with everything reversed. In Barbieland, women rule. They’re doctors and lawyers and Nobel prize winners. Issa Rae plays President Barbie, who gets the satisfying privilege of dropping the only f-bomb in the movie. Women are revered; their intelligence is never questioned. They get to be fabulous, wear sparkles, and run the world. It may be perfect, but is it real?

Barbieworld is, of course, emphasized by the set design, the quality of which cannot be overstated. It’s an incredible feat. Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer, known for their work on Joe Wright’s Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, served as production designer and set designer respectively. There is something so satisfying about how tactile the sets are – how you can look at the smooth, chunky plastic doll houses and know exactly how they would feel. It’s artificial yet relatable, faux-lifelike. The set is a mix of life-size practical designs and miniatures, and if there was ever an argument for what practical special effects can accomplish, it’s Barbie. Everything feels theatrical in Barbieland, almost slapstick, and this soundstage look purposefully and beautifully harkens back to the vibrancy of Technicolor musicals from the 1940s and 1950s.

The Kens are there, of course, but they’re more of an afterthought. They exist to worship their respective Barbies. In a clever subversion of the creation myth, Ken exists only as an extension of Barbie. It’s a world not free of men necessarily, but free of the social constructs and institutions that contribute to the kind of behavior that gets women catcalled on the street or touched inappropriately at a bar. It’s safe and innocent, like childhood.

But everyone has to grow up sometime.

The real trouble starts when stereotypical Barbie, played with endless charm and warmth by Margot Robbie, who also serves as a producer on the film, begins to feel things. She starts to contemplate her own existence, having obsessive thoughts of death. As explained by the weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) – so named because she was played with too hard, and sports a jagged haircut and felt marker all over her face – the little girl playing with Barbie is having a crisis, and it’s bleeding over into Barbieland. Weird Barbie, in another hilarious riff – this time on the red pill/blue pill scene from The Matrix – explains that Barbie must travel to the real world to set things right with the little girl playing with her so that everything can go back to normal. Barbie must choose: take the high heel or the sandal.

Barbie enters the real world of Venice Beach, California with her Ken (Ryan Gosling) in tow, and they both realize the awful truth: the real world sucks. In the first five minutes of being there, Barbie gets sexually assaulted, arrested, and bursts into tears. She comes to find that Barbie didn’t fix anything. In fact, she might have made things worse. She’s just an idea sold to girls to make them think they can do anything – but reality is far more complicated than that. Ken, of course, discovers toxic masculinity and, after forever of feeling like he isn’t good enough, returns home to attempt a mutiny in Barbieland.

There’s no doubt that Barbie was made by an elder millennial, for elder millennials. It’s not that Barbie isn’t a good time for everyone, because it certainly is – and despite a few adult jokes that will probably go right over their heads, it’s pretty accessible for kids – but the movie will most likely hit the hardest with women who experienced all of the deeply traumatic, unique ways women were tortured in the media in the 90s and early 2000s. It’s clear that Gerwig is coming from a place of trying to make sense of the world she grew up in, trying to figure out how to move forward. It’s simplistic in its views of sex and gender, but that doesn’t seem like a flaw. It kind of seems like the point.

Barbie is, after all, a blank slate. She has lived her whole existence in a utopia where every day is the best day. In a lot of ways, she’s just a child, experiencing the full range of human emotion for the first time. Barbie and Ken are Adam and Eve, thrown out of the Garden of Eden to experience what it means to truly be human, to be aware.

While the film’s biblical undertones are apparent, Barbie’s journey is also a coming-of-age story. Margot Robbie is, to no-one’s surprise, incredible. This is a role she was very much born to play and she relishes every moment of it. Robbie’s strengths lie in how personable she is, how it’s practically impossible to hate her. She is so effortlessly vulnerable, and it is in her moments of conflict and tragedy that that the film really shines. Ryan Gosling’s Ken is also worthy of praise – he’s not afraid to make fun of himself, to be silly or even pathetic. Gosling’s comedic talent really gets to shine in Barbie, and his singing and dancing skills are put to far better use than they were in La La Land. As for the other Barbies and Kens, Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie is a standout, as is Issa Rae and Michael Cera as Ken’s friend, Allan, a toy that has long been discontinued.

The film is both a celebration of the things we loved in our childhoods and a critique of the endless lies corporations try to sell us. It’s a miracle that Gerwig got away with some of the more obvious criticisms of Barbie IP owners Mattel, and while Barbie is by no means a scathing indictment of consumerism, it is clear Gerwig was given more creative freedom than people may have expected.

America Ferrera’s Gloria, along with her teenage daughter Sasha, played by Ariana Greenblatt, are probably the only glaring missteps in movie. Their characters are integral to the story, but they feel underdeveloped and aren’t given nearly enough time to breath. And while Gloria does get a hearty monologue about how impossible it is to be a woman, it does feel slightly forced. Perhaps this was to maintain focus on Barbie herself, whose encounters with an elderly woman at the bus stop, played by costuming legend Ann Roth, and a late scene with Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), creator of Barbie, are the heart and soul of the film.

Like any good spectacle, there is a universal, human truth at the core of Barbie, and co-writer director Greta Gerwig never loses sight of that. She keeps her soul, the very thing that made audiences fall in love with her work in the first place, and Barbie therefore delivers almost precisely what we had all hoped.

Score: 21/24

Bliss (2021)
Director: Mike Cahill
Screenwriter: Mike Cahill
Starring: Owen Wilson, Salma Hayek, Nesta Cooper, Jorge Lendeborg Jr.

During the 2000s, the pseudo-independent film studios of the time bought up high concept festival films like never before, and as a result the sci-fi-leaning dramas that kept audiences engaged almost exclusively through mysterious and often flabbergasting plot developments (that were intended to very slowly unravel the mystery behind the story afoot) were thrust into the public eye. Some of the best and most memorable of the era were Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly’s outstanding mind-bending debut, and the Charlie Kaufman penned Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. These films, and a batch of similarly as concept-driven pieces including Oscar Best Picture winner Crash, seemed to flood the exhibition space beneath the blockbuster franchise entries from Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-Man, creatives of the time (as well as studios like Fox Searchlight and Miramax) seemingly inspired by the late 90s critical and commercial success of American Beauty, Sam Mendes’ era-defining classic built around the mystery of who murdered its protagonist. 2021 Amazon Studios film Bliss, from Another Earth filmmaker Mike Cahill, is one such film; a throwback to an era of mind-widening but often frustrating cinema, an almost parodically high concept presented in this case without confidence or sophistication. If 2003’s The United States of Leland was a shallower version of American Beauty and 2017’s The Discovery a shallower version of Eternal Sunshine, then 2021’s Bliss is a shallower version of all of the above plus The Matrix, only with the colour palette of a dreary suburban drama of decades past and dialogue that could be better imagined by your local improv class.

Thematically, Bliss falls into a lot of the same traps as films of the 90s hangover released earlier this century, centring its narrative around a man (Greg Wittle – played by Owen Wilson) unhappy with his middle class lifestyle and his daily management of a doomed marriage and corporate oppression within the workplace. Here, as is the case with many a late 90s film – Titanic, Office Space and American Beauty chief amongst them – it takes a brief encounter with falling down the class totem poll for him to “find himself”, Bliss combining this formula with an allegory for drug addiction as Greg embraces a homeless lifestyle away from the capitalist constructs that at one time burdened him. Through this representation of addiction, Bliss integrates its sci-fi concept which suggests that Greg is in just one of many layers of virtual existence, “pearls” of various colours being his way in and out of each, the beautiful yet enigmatic Isabel (Salma Hayek) – a woman who claims to be Greg’s lover from another life – his oracle. As Greg tumbles down the rabbit hole, we see his struggle for what it really is through the eyes of his daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper), though with her existence questionable and Mike Cahill unwilling to have his protagonist suitably challenge anything that is told to him, Bliss at all levels quickly unravels from being an interesting premise into something that demands you engage with it just as little as the protagonist does.

Perhaps a lot was lost between the finished screenplay and the final edit, the attachment of leading talents Owen Wilson – who is particularly impressive in his early scenes as the anxiety-riddled lead – and Salma Hayek seeming to suggest that the intention of the piece was better realised on the page, but if that is the case it is incredibly difficult to see how this could have all gone so wrong.

In the late 90s or even the early 2000s, Cahill may have been forgiven for presenting such a dalliance with poverty and drug addiction, a less aware middle class comfortable in (or at least around) a period of relative affluence, but in the early 2020s – in the midst of a second “once in a lifetime” economic recession and with the middle class dissolved into an upper working class and replaced by a new class of richest people in history – the idea of using the experiences of the least powerful in society as a narrative device for a middle class white male is not only an outdated one but a sightless and inconsiderate one; only the blinkers of a filmmaker massively removed from the realities of so many people’s everyday lives could produce such a negligent representation of current events.

And yet current events are shoe-horned in, as if elements produced at the whim of an agent or producers looking to stimulate a sales package for the script and/or film. Greg’s on-screen confidante and prospective lover Isabel (Salma Hayek) makes mention of world-ending poverty, environmental disasters and so on as the couple take in lavish surroundings in a dreamscape found in a different layer of the realities they are presented with, and the film toys with the ideas of riots from afar (though about what we are never sure), the insight into the how and why of any of the film’s events as inconsequential as the hero’s experiences with poverty, addiction and/or mental illness. Nothing in Bliss matters, not even our own idea of which reality is real and which is not, which is a major problem for a narrative that is for all intents and purposes about the filmmaking process of experiencing life in other people’s shoes and then communicating that through trickery and manipulation. Cahill’s work suffers from a far less sophisticated and less exciting version of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet-problem – that being an insistence upon having us experience a mind-bending narrative as opposed to having us engage with it – and the result, when tied to bland visuals and meme-worthy dialogue, is poor.

In Bliss, people around Greg don’t matter – not even Greg’s daughter – and as protesters are dismissed out of hand, homeless people represented as cheery and content in their tents by the river, murder victims shrugged off as “not real”, and a haven landscape described as the result of the world’s resources being brought into check by mass human extinction, there is a darkness to Cahill’s work that is difficult to distinguish as being a purposeful narrative element intent on commentating on our current way of life, an incredible oversight or the ideological undertaking of a Randian individualist.

With no clear answers to present ideologically or even narratively, Bliss is easily forgettable in spite of its star power and early promise. Where The Matrix asked whether we would take the red or the blue pill – the harsh realities of the world or vast comforts of virtual reality our destinations – this Mike Cahill film asks if we’ll take gold or green pearls, but forgets to give us a reason to consider taking even one of them. Consistent only in how inconsistent it is, and thought-provoking only in how messy it is, Bliss is an instantly forgettable and wholly unoriginal film, the likes of which we thought had been outdated by 2006.

5/24

A fifth installment of the successful John Wick action franchise starring Keanu Reeves (Bill & Ted, Toy Story 4) has been confirmed by Lionsgate, according to Deadline. The film will be shot back to back with the fourth film, intended to begin production in early 2021.

In an earnings call, the CEO of Lionsgate, John Feltheimer, stated: “We’re also busy preparing scripts for the next two installments of our John Wick action franchise, with John Wick 4 slated to hit theaters Memorial Day weekend 2022. We hope to shoot both John Wick 4 & 5 back to back when Keanu becomes available early next year.” Reeves is currently shooting the fourth Matrix film for Warner Bros.

The John Wick franchise has proven to be critically and commercially successful with its first three installments, so it comes as no surprise that Lionsgate are keen to start work on more films. To date, the series has amassed $584.2m, with each film making more than the predecessor. John Wick: Chapter 3 made $326.7m against a $75m budget, showing how profitable the films are for the studio.

Fans can expect a more connected story between the two films, as is usually the case with films shot consecutively. Examples include The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies as well as MCU movies Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. No story details are currently known for either film however.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is currently scheduled to release on 27 May 2022 with Chapter 5 yet to be slated by Lionsgate.

The series, which concluded its central film franchise with the 2003 entry The Matrix Revolutions, had long been rumoured to be getting a reboot under the Warner Bros. banner, with reports from 2017 suggesting that Creed and Black Panther actor Michael B. Jordan was on board to star.

A statement from Warner Bros. Picture Group chairman Toby Emmerich, published in Variety, has however put these rumours to rest, instead confirming the return of the franchise’s original co-writer/director Lana Wachowski to the role of screenwriter/director for a fourth instalment in the pre-existing franchise:

“We could not be more excited to be re-entering ‘The Matrix’ with Lana. Lana is a true visionary – a singular and original creative filmmaker – and we are thrilled that she is writing, directing and producing this new chapter in ‘The Matrix’ universe.”

As well as confirmation of Lana Wachowski’s involvement, it is being reported that original stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss will return as Neo and Trinity respectively. Reeves, who has become somewhat of a cultural icon in recent years, is coming off the back of a successful summer that includes the box office hit John Wick 3, Netflix original rom-com Always Be My Maybe and the billion dollar Disney Pixar hit Toy Story 4.

The fourth instalment, although confirmed, is yet to be given a release date, though the picture will be co-produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures, and is reportedly set to begin filming in 2020.

“Many of the ideas Lilly and I explored 20 years ago about our reality are even more relevant now. I’m very happy to have these characters back in my life and grateful for another chance to work with my brilliant friends,” Wachowski said.

The original Matrix is due for a 20 year anniversary re-release in the US on August 30th.

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The term ‘cyberpunk’ is thrown around a lot these days, and normally by those who don’t have a solid understanding of what it actually is beyond large hologram billboards and a brooding protagonist. In this article I hope to give you a basic understanding of its literary and cinematic progenitors, from the rise of the original pack of cyberpunks through to modern cinema’s fascination with it. I’ll be exploring basic themes and motifs of the sub-genre, and hoping to shed some light on why green dreadlocks trapped in a neon drenched gun fight is only scratching the surface of what cyberpunk actually is.

The History Lesson

The Origins

It is the late 70’s, early 80’s. Star Wars has made science-fiction cool and profitable, and planet-hopping intergalactic epics have taken the world by storm. Dune is being made into a film (by many people before David Lynch) and science-fiction is going big on a scale never seen before.

This really irritated a small group of writers such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan and Greg Egan (to name but a few), who felt that this simply didn’t reflect them and their society at that time. In an age of consumerism (advertisements etc.), and bright lights and technology advancing at a pace never anticipated, they felt that this changing world wasn’t being properly reflected in the genre at the time. It was too escapist, too out-there for it to really mean something. They began to write about what this meant to them in their present via the route of a near-future setting.

They explored what effect technology had on humanity when they were inextricably linked. They explored artificial reality, asked if someone inside another world, in their mind, was really them at all. They wanted to discuss the rise of all-powerful multi-national corporations and the ever-increasing influence of Asian nations on Western society. By putting their protagonists in the grime and dirt of the streets instead of intergalactic star ships and their like, they sought to communicate how the every-man was experiencing their new, dynamic world.

Not that some of these themes and ideas hadn’t already been discussed before. The boundary between human and machine is one as old as Science-Fiction itself, with the question of humanity’s defining characteristics going back to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”. One might even make the argument that Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece Metropolis is an ancestor for cyberpunk – the machine Maria blurs the line between what is human and what is technology by taking the face of a human. This is certainly a prototype for many characters that would come later.

Philip K. Dick was one of the main literary progenitors of cyberpunk, and his influence cannot be understated. Despite coming before the rise of the cyberpunks, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and its silver screen adaptation Blade Runner are still perhaps the turning point, and a milestone which none have matched since. In Ridley Scott’s film, Rachel questioning Deckard, ‘have you ever retired a human by mistake?’ sets up the main thematic question of the film; where is the line between human and machine?

Endless debates about Deckard’s nature have gone on for decades, and some have even questioned whether replicants themselves are machines at all, or just superhuman in their traits.

Added to this is the proliferation of giant advertisements, the neon-drenched landscape, the exploration of the lower classes in the form of Sebastian, and the thriller-esque narrative, and we see that the film laid the groundwork for the book that would open up cyberpunk to the masses.

Cyberpunk’s Sprawl

Though he had written many short stories beforehand and cyberpunk was a burgeoning subgenre by this point in his career, William Gibson would define the sub-genre with his 1984 debut novel “Neuromancer”, the first novel to win the Hugo, Philip K. Dick, and Nebula awards.

Ex-Cyberspace hacker and drug addict Case is brought on for a final task against a large artificial intelligence in exchange for a chance to jack into the matrix again. Introducing the world to ‘cyberspace’ (a term first coined by Gibson) and the spider-web technological world of the matrix, Gibson blended the neon-soaked chrome of Blade Runner (which he reportedly thought people would think he copied from the film) and combined it with a unique narrative to build the foundations for what was to come.

In its wake, Bruce Sterling produced “Schismatrix”, Pat Cadigan came out with “Mindplayers”, Rudy Rucker wrote the second part of the “Ware” series (“Wetware”) in 1988, Lewis Shiner combined cyberpunk with space exploration in “Frontera”, and at the end of the initial sprawl, Neal Stephenson would apply the hindi word ‘avatar’ to virtual reality and videogames for the first time in “Snow Crash”. Gibson himself would continue “Neuromancer’s” story with “Count Zero” and “Mona Lisa Overdrive”, and eventually team up with Sterling to define Steampunk with “The Difference Engine”.

Cyberpunk had started to infect science-fiction’s bloodstream, and this wasn’t just limited to the west. In Japan, Akira (based on the manga) set anime ablaze, and after several novels, 1995 would see the release of the original Ghost in the Shell movie. And let’s not forget Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a strange splatter-punk style film that is as unique as it is disturbing and strange, blending horror and cyberpunk together for an unforgettable cinematic experience.

David Cronenberg was also experimenting in these areas to an extent, and if you were to look at Videodrome for example, you may see similarities with cyberpunk narratives, despite that picture being primarily a horror film too.

Memory is examined in Total Recall, the adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember it for you Wholesale”, and the cyborg nature of cyberpunk gets a memorable outing not just in Cyborg, but also in such films as Robocop and its numerous sequels. To an extent, perhaps even The Terminator could be seen to have many similarities with cyberpunk.

And yet the genre was almost single-handedly redefined in 1999 when the Wachowski’s unleash one of the most influential films in sci-fi history, The Matrix.

The Matrix Revolution

The Matrix wasn’t the first to do almost anything in its run-time – it managed to take bits and pieces from almost everywhere and combine them in such a way that cyberpunk scripts were metaphorically rewritten. Mixing the Plato’s cave from “Dark City”, the cyberspace of Gibson’s “Sprawl” Trilogy, the noir elements of Blade Runner, the action sequences of Ghost in the Shell and a script worked on for five solid years, The Matrix took everything it could from its predecessors and meshed it all together seamlessly, and to great success.

After The Matrix, cyberpunk seemed to be taken seriously once again. Its ramifications even echoed to outside science-fiction and its smooth direction was copied infinitely (the first Underworld film is what happens if you take a Matrix-esque style and apply it to Vampires vs. Werewolves). Perhaps Inception might not have garnered as much interest had The Matrix not proved that a multi-layered, cross-cutting science-fiction extravaganza was not only possible but financially plausible if treated correctly. Look at the slow-motion in Dredd, or even the interlocking of reality and The Oasis in Ready Player One. And look at how cyberpunk (though one would argue it never left Japan) came back big-style in anime with ‘Sword Art Online’, ‘AccelWorld’ and ‘Psycho Pass’. Add to this the critical success of Blade Runner 2049 and Roger Deakins finally snagging that Academy Award (after 14 nominations) for cinematography, as well as Netflix’s recent adaptation of ‘Altered Carbon’ making waves, it seems that cyberpunk is more relevant than ever, and here to stay.

The Academia

When people ask what cyberpunk is, the answer they’ll most commonly receive is ‘high tech, low life’. This phrase itself comes from Bruce Sterling’s introduction to William Gibson’s short story collection “Burning Chrome”. This is however too simplified of an explanation. Cyberpunk is more than tropes of down-and-out male protagonists with the hum of technology around them.

I present a different explanation.

There is a common rhetorical question that goes something like this: if you were to replace one plank of a ship, and then another, and then the whole ship piece by piece, at the end of it all would you still have the same ship? My explanation of cyberpunk’s beating metallic core would be a rendition of this: if you replace one part of a human with technology, and then another, and then their reality, and then their brain, and then their mind, and then their emotions, and then their memories, at what point do they stop being human?

If we go right back to Metropolis we see the question of humanity in the twinning of the two Maria’s, one human and one machine. Mechanical Maria brings down Metropolis, upsetting the order; a clear warning of the implications technological advancement could have for social upheaval.

Metropolis is clearly inspired by R.U.R, the play by Karel Čapek that introduced English to the word “robot”, where a new breed of artificially created people create a revolution to overthrow society. Jump forward a few decades and what do we see in “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and later Blade Runner, the archetypal cyberpunk texts in both mediums? Someone tasked with stopping androids/replicants from radically altering society with their very existence. Those technologically created humans? We like them when they do what we want, but they aren’t us. They don’t have souls. They weren’t born.

But does their origin make an artificial human different to us? Consider the empathetic learning of Schwarzenegger’s T800 throughout Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The relentless killing machine we know from the first film is transformed into a being of understanding and near-emotion thanks to John Connor’s interaction with him. We have to try to remember that this character is not human but a machine. And yet, if they have all the understanding of a human (the emotions, the memories) and simply have silicon for skin, where does this boundary between human and non-human lie?

This too is Blade Runner’s complexity.

Does Deckard fall for a replicant or a person? The dove flying from Batty’s hand upon his death is symbolic of his soul. So if a replicant has a soul, are they now a human? Do replicants deserve the same treatment as people of natural birth as opposed to artificial creation?

Think of Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Is he wires or flesh? At what point does our amalgamation with technology transcend our definition of humanity? If he becomes fully automated? He started human and was born naturally, but is now entirely functional and “conscious” by artificial means. What do we do in this situation?

Virtual reality plays a similar role, only this time going straight for our brain. When we immerse ourselves in a videogame, such as in Ready Player One, Snow Crash, or (in many ways) The Matrix, which “life” becomes our reality? Remember that Cypher says in The Matrix: ‘I believe the matrix can be more real than the real world’. And, as many theories would state; if we take the possibility that the ‘real world’ in The Matrix is simply another layer – which is an explanation of why Neo can see although blind – then what is our reality? Is the real world actually the truth? What is truth to us?

When we lose ourselves in the pop-culture arcade of The Oasis in Ready Player One, or in Aincrad in ‘Sword Art Online’, does it become our life? Does the artificial reality in fact become our only reality? In Frontera, the main character Kane has a brain implant that alters his whole understanding of what is real and illusion: ‘stimulating that area of the right brain is supposed to cause hallucinations.’

Will this happen to us one day? And if he sees things as a result of technology, without his knowledge, is he really seeing a hallucination at all or simply projections of his own reality no different to our own?

These texts specifically question what happens when we allow technology to radically affect our understanding of the world and, more importantly, ourselves. As Steve Best says in his article on Robocop, ‘A key aspect of this fear concerns the erasure of human identity under advanced technological conditions.’

Tracking every nuance of cyberpunk would take an entire shelf of books, and even then there would be things that were missed. I do, however, hope that this article provided an initial insight into a section of science-fiction which, I have no doubt, will become more and more prevalent as time goes on, and hopefully help to provide an opening into a world that goes beyond the aesthetics and into an examination of ourselves and our technology.

Be sure to support the other platforms Kieran contributes to, at:

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When we think of science fiction movies, there are certain moments that stand out to us as defining examples of the genre – Luke Skywalker finding out he’s the heir to a giant grey space ball of mass destruction, astronaut David Bowman tripping out on a psychedelic cocktail of space and time, and even Spock’s dying act of pressing his parted hand up against Kirk’s as he took one for the team; or the Many; or was it the few? I forget which.

But, what is science fiction really?

By definition, it’s science that isn’t real.

Or is it?

Well, for the most part, no. No it isn’t. But strip away all the humanoid looking aliens that all speak with the same mid-western American accents, and all the physics defying laser sword space-jitsu in galaxies far, far, away and what you’re left with are some very ground-breaking and revolutionary ideas, a lot of which have had a very real influence on modern technology.

Now, is this to say that all the gizmos and doo-dah’s we see brought to life on the big screen will one day have a shelf-price in our local grocery store? It’s very doubtful (and not just because in the future grocery stores will probably be a thing of the past. As probably will be the phrase ‘doo-dah’). But, to give credit where credit’s due, sci-fi has always had a pretty good track record when it comes to predicting the future. A record not even Nostradamus could sniff at.

It was in the early 1990’s that the world first began salivating at the notion of receiving electronic mail and also suffering through the dull and dreary music of ‘Spin Doctors.’ (Oops, sorry, I meant the dial-up connection.) But, before the ‘internet’ was a household tool, the idea of an ever-expanding entity that retained an endless array of knowledge was thoughtfully brought to the big screen in Star Trek: The motion Picture as the all-enveloping sentient machine ‘V’Ger’.

In the film, the crew of the USS Enterprise intercept a strange cosmic cloud making its way to Earth. In doing so, they encounter ‘Voyager 6’ (abbreviated to V’Ger) at the heart of the cloud; a long-lost space probe which was upgraded by an alien race and sent to traverse the cosmos to gain as much knowledge as possible. Now, I’m not saying that ‘V’Ger’ and the internet are completely comparable in terms of technology, given that is one is sentient and space bound, but the two do share some similar qualities.

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979, the home computer was still a growing market. Things like the internet were yet to be made available to the common man and the idea of downloading was an unknown concept. But ‘V’Ger’, much like the internet, is an ever-evolving entity that absorbs all and any information it can acquire (for better or worse) and has the ability to copy and transfer (or download) the character of Llia’s memories and thoughts into a robotic replica. So, while none of us are downloading memories into robotic replicas (unless you work for a super-secret branch of the government, of course) downloading has become something we all do on a regular basis.

So, to refresh: a cloud that stores infinite knowledge? Check. A constantly evolving and upgrading technology? Check. An ability to download all of its information? Check. Seems like the internet to me. Well done Star Trek, you get a cookie.

Now, say what you will about the Matrix trilogy (I’ll pause here to let you all vent your frustrations at the computer screen… …. …. All done? Good,) but it did for virtual reality what Vin Diesel did for bald men – it made it stylish.

Just like how the character Neo would sit back and plug himself into a simulated reality in the films, people today can put on a cheap as chips headset and transport themselves to a virtual world of endless possibilities with as little as a smartphone and a free app.

Recent advances in VR, like Sony’s Oculus head gear or even HTC’s VIVE now allow for even greater experiences in virtual reality, adding heightened interactivity to VR gaming and simulations. And, whilst the technology of VR might still be in it’s early stages, a future akin to that in the film Ready Player One – where everybody prefers to live a simulated life in “the Oasis” instead of facing the bleak and hopeless reality of the real world – might not be as far-fetched as it may have once seemed.

What’s more is that a virtual reality in which we can work and earn a living as our digital creations is another idea science fiction has suggested over the years. Want my advice? Go and register a cool avatar name now before all the good ones are gone. Just don’t bother trying “Where’s-WALL.E-88.” That one’s taken.

Whilst it can be said that a lot of science fiction technology in films exists purely as a cool visual to help boost ticket sales or as a convenient plot device to aid the hero on their quest, many of these ideas have the potential to change the shape of the world we live in. In the 1990 film Total Recall, self-driving taxis called “Johnny cabs” are as commonplace as any vehicle on the road and come fully installed with a robotic driver to liaise with and collect payment. In the film iRobot starring Will Smith, cars come with an auto-drive function as standard, allowing the driver to switch between manual and automatic with the push of a button.

Although the reliance on self-driving vehicles in the movies usually ends up with the technology backfiring for entertainment’s sake, the development of such a technology in real life aims to take away the risk of human error and provide a safer and more convenient way to travel. This is what the Brainiacs over at Google have done with their own autonomous car development company called WAYMO.

Using sophisticated laser beam and GPS technology to map the area, a WAYMO car can constantly record and relay information to programme its route. Not only have WAYMO managed to build fully operational autonomous cars, but they say they could be only five to ten years away from hitting the streets, and it’s not just WAYMO that are developing this technology – numerous car manufactures have their own driver-less prototypes in the works. Whether or not driver-less cars are a permanent replacement for the cars we drive today remains a question mark, but I’ll take a robot Cabbie over having to listen to my Uber driver’s political rant any day.

Remember in those Iron Man films how Tony Stark casually flips through digital files in mid-air and uses the floating trashcan like a basketball hoop for junk files? Well, soon you’ll be able to do that too (do you hear that? It’s a cheer heard all around the world from all those guys who grew an Iron Man goatee in 2008 and stuck with it despite every member of their family pleading with them to shave.)

Don’t get too excited; the technology is real, but it’s a little way off from becoming a household utility. A company in Japan called ITRI have created a wearable pair of glasses that allow you to bring up computer displays in mid-air and use it by simply touching your finger against a projected screen. The screen, which appears invisible to everyone else, is designed to give more privacy and also lets the user see the real world through the floating images (just so you don’t walk into a street lamp, or a matinee showing of an Adam Sandler movie by mistake). Unlike in the film Minority Report (pictured above) where Tom Cruise uses specially modified gloves to interact with all the digital displays as he filters through various crimes files, ITRI has designed the head-mounted display to react to the human finger using special sensors that detect the position of your finger and select whatever you point at. But, if you’re in the market for something a little less flashy, you can buy a Laser Keyboard that projects a laser display of a computer keyboard via Bluetooth onto any flat surface allowing you to type away at your table top or kitchen counter until your heart’s content.

Science fiction hasn’t just influenced technology in a practical way. More convenient transport and multi-lingual phones are all well and good, but sci-fi has also changed other aspects of our lives.

One of the most obvious of these changes has been to the contents of our wardrobes. Everything from androgynous silver jumpsuits to ultra-sexy spandex pieces are common in the movies, but when it come to wearable technology, a few films have had more of an impact than others; and I’m not just talking watches that you can steer your sports car with like in Casino Royale, I’m talking about the good stuff.

Remember those self-tying shoes from Back to the Future Part II? They exist. Nike have finally delivered on what Robert Zemeckis promised us 29 years ago. They’re called Nike Air Mags, and by squeezing a button on the side of the shoe, it tightens and loosens to the correct size of the wearer. Its not exactly the most critical of purchases, but if you told me that you didn’t want to have a pair, then I’d know you were lying.

My conclusive thought regarding sci-fi’s lasting impact on real technologies is this: as technology catches up with science fiction, and all those cool things we marvelled at as children after coming out of the cinema screen slowly start to become a reality, perhaps all our favourite sci-fi films of yesterday will be redefined as simply…films. So here’s hoping the next generation of science fiction inspires more amazing technology.

I for one can’t wait for mobile phones that don’t lose signal when you enter a tunnel, but I guess there’s an argument that such a technology more accurately falls under the genre of fantasy.

Written by Craig Sheldon

In this article, all 7 of the films the Wachowskis have co-directed will be ranked from worst to best. Where the films stop being bad and become good will be up to you. Why don’t you let us know in the comments?

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” – Morpheus (The Matrix – 1999)

7. The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

The Matrix Revolutions was the third and final instalment in the Matrix franchise and it sits at the foot of this list for that exact reason. It’s not that it was necessarily worse than some of the entries ahead, it’s more that it was bad and came with a huge stench of disappointment. How could they end something so good, so poorly?

Revolutions concluded the tale of Mr. Anderson – aka. Neo (Keanu Reeves) – overcoming the vicious technological overlords that had enslaved humanity and placed it in a virtual reality. The story of revolution (hence the title) had followed two solid movies depicting the rise of the chosen one and subsequent demolishing of the walls that bounded the virtual world from the real world, yet to fully understand the plot it was demanded by the screenwriter-directors that Matrix properties were explored outside of the film universe itself, not only making it more difficult and expensive for audiences of the time to fully understand every story thread of the film, but making it nigh impossible for a contemporary audience to follow it to the fullest extent courtesy of outdated video games available exclusively for outdated video game systems and so on. Even with full knowledge, there were plot holes as wide as the Grand Canyon and the CG effects don’t stand up to today’s standards – they probably don’t even stand up to the standards of The Matrix, released four years prior.

Overall, this is the type of sequel that was so poor it inevitably damaged the original, which is a shame given that particular movie’s great qualities.

6. Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Jupiter Ascending was another Wachowski film that was hard to follow given the filmmakers’ assumption that their brand new universe was free to be explored with little to no explanation. What’s worse is that unlike in their The Matrix series, the siblings offered nothing as substantial in terms of thematic exploration, nor did they manage to capture the time period of its release as accurately as with other projects.

Jupiter Ascending instead felt like an attempt to create a studio-driven original universe to rival those of the re-emerging Star Wars universe, as well as Star Trek and of course the MCU, coming across as forced cash-grabbing more than their other work.

Notable mostly for a performance by then Oscar-nominee Eddie Redmayne that was received more harshly than it perhaps deserved to be, even the star power of Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis – both the height of their powers – couldn’t stop Ascending from being a very expensive mistake.