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22 Review »

1. 

   Posted by BobBobson on demonoid:
   Watched it last night, and I was really impressed.

   One small thing I would have done differently, though: I would have kept the Chateau fight (Neo vs. the Merovingian’s henchmen) intact.

   Still, excellent work overall. Nice job, CBB! I’ll definitely take a look at your other edits!

   Review by boon23 — June 22, 2007 @ 10:38 am

2. 

   Posted by beekernuts on demonoid:
   Just finished watching it and have to say it was so much easier to understand. also loved how the action seq seemed to be better timed in this one compared to the original. Thank you for this and will love to see more of this type of work. P.S. no orgy dance – yessss.

   Review by boon23 — June 22, 2007 @ 10:38 am

3. 

   Posted by notbond007 on dmeonoid:
   Watch some of it last night. I love it. Definitely a good call on removing the crap that you did. Sweet !!! I’m gonna give it to everyone I know. Wow, I’m actually excited about the Matrix sequel again.

   Review by boon23 — June 22, 2007 @ 10:39 am

4. 

   Posted by muddafugga on dmeonoid:
   I have to admit, I was skeptical about this. As much as despised the brothers pushing “Zion”-ism on us as a thread through these films, I just wasn’t sure how this recut would hold up. But it does. It really, really does. It’s more coherent, better paced, and still retains the buttkickin’ nature of the series. Kudos guys, great job.

   Review by boon23 — June 22, 2007 @ 10:40 am

5. 

   Posted by gamillah on demonoid:
   i thought i was the only person in the free world to think that 2 and 3 sucked and didn’t weave themselves into the first thought of Matrix. I can’t wait to see this. I hope ppl are still seeding this. I watched the tril over and over and i couldn’t figure out what in the hell happened with movies 2 and 3. It just didn’t make sense.. Maybe if anyone is watching they will redo them and go off the first idea of Matrix. Matrix was awesome. thx for the post.

   The artists behind these edited (remade) movies ROCK!!! thx again.

   Review by boon23 — June 22, 2007 @ 10:40 am

6. 

   its amazing how less is actually more, Alot More!, this is my favorite fanedit thus far in my limited experiance of edits, i will definately make this the sequel to watch, this is a masterpiece to a masterpiece!

   Review by DawgLB — March 4, 2008 @ 7:31 pm

7. 

   I have only seen #2 and #3 once and never had any desire to watch them again. Its also been awhile so I didnt remember specifics much while I watched this one (unlike watching a Star Wars fan edit after seeing the originals more times than I care to mention).
   In many ways this was a new movie and a good effort at making something out of two very bad ones. It was certainly better without all the Zion related scenes but several key aspects of the story are talked about or happen in them. So unfortunately parts of deZIONized lack context or setup and assume we know certain information to place them in the proper perspective. Still, few movies can survive having almost half of it cut out (140 minutes kept, 120 cut) but in this case its significantly better.

   Review by Sammy033 — March 28, 2008 @ 8:21 am

8. 

   My two cents…

   Pros: tighter to be sure, and faster moving without some of those subplots.

   Cons: I’m a fan of Matrix 1 but I never liked the smug, too-cool-for-school tone of these sequels. This edit doesn’t improve anything in that regard – actually I don’t think any edit could.

   Review by spicediver10191 — May 13, 2008 @ 6:05 am

9. 

   From a fanedit point of view it was expertly done. I really liked the beginning of the movie where we see the last scene from the first film in the beginning. Nicely done. This is the most action packed piece of editing I’ve ever seen. Most editors would shy away from this cause it may cause audience exhaustion, I almost felt exhausted after watching it haha. Also kudos for the cover designers, they’re all very well done… it’s hard to choose which one to use.
   In my view though this film was a tad long for what it is – which mostly felt like non-stop fighting scenes BUT I did enjoy this cut much more than the original. And I would whole heartily recommend folks to watch this version over the original 2 films. Well done!

   Review by Laserdisc — August 29, 2008 @ 5:31 pm

10. 

    Like seemingly everyone else on the planet, I was blown away by The Matrix when it hit theatres in 1999. And, like seemingly everyone else on the planet, I eagerly awaited the the release of the sequels. So highly anticipated were these sequels, that many genre magazines and websites already began predicting that The Matrix Trilogy would be one the greatest trilogies of all time, aside the original Star Wars trilogy. The first trailer looked great, the cast and crew were all back and everything was set to blow us away again. And, then, something happened. I didn’t know what it was at the time but the sequels were a bit … off. I didn’t hate them but they just seemed so much more disposable to me than the original. And, at a time when Lord of the Rings was showing up nearly every other franchise, The Matrix sequels stood out even more. It wasn’t until I watch The Matrix deZIONized that I realized what was wrong with these movies. First off, they don’t work as two separate sequels. Like the later Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, there just isn’t enough story to justify two movies. It was clearly all about money. When the story fails, the Wachowskis turn to psuedo-intellectual nonsense and hollow action scenes to fill out the running time. The second thing that doesn’t work, obviously, is Zion. Zion’s one of those things that fans thought they wanted to see until they saw it. There isn’t a single character in Zion that we remotely care about, so it’s just plain dull spending time with them. And, the end battle means nothing. We just want to get back to the original characters. deZIONized is not without it’s fault’s though. The action scenes still go on too long but I’m not sure much could be done to edit them for continuity and technical reasons. Also, by chopping off Zion we are denied Morpheus’s ending. He simply disappears when Neo and Trinity head to Machine City. Since Morpheus is one of the original characters, it feels wrong denying him any sort of closure. Still, these small criticisms aside, deZIONized brings dignity back to The Matrix sequels and is once again a lesson for Hollywood. I loved it and I don’t see myself revisiting the theatrical cuts again anytime soon (except for the Blu-ray release).

    Review by Kolpitz — September 4, 2008 @ 5:39 am

11. 

    Very expertly done edit! It’s exactly what it sounds like: The Matrix without Zion. This is a considerably faster, more action-packed movie than the originals were, and the plot is a lot easier to follow. The one drawback is that it does feel somewhat incomplete, due to a lot of loose ends never being tied up. For example, Morpheus completely disappeared some time during the third act, so it still lacks closure. However, the ride to the end is a lot better this time, so I would definitely rather watch this than have to sit through both of the originals. It felt a lot more in tune with the first movie in terms of pace and overall style, which is undoubtedly thanks to the fact that there is no Zion footage at all (except for Neo recieving the chip from the oracle, although through clever editing we’re actually lead to believe this happened on the Nebuchadnezzar).

    I can’t quite say this is the ultimate cut of the Matrix sequels, because frankly I’m still looking for that. In the mean time though, this is definitely a much more satisfying sequel, even if it’s still a little off. I gave it 4/5 stars. You get most of the good parts and none of the bad in a 2 1/2 hour movie, which starts off running and never loses its feet. The annoying plot twists are still in there, and the ending still leaves a fair amount of story threads dangling (which was a problem in the original, as well), but overall this is a solid sequel.

    Review by Timstuff — September 11, 2008 @ 10:28 pm

12. 

    It works very, very good. There was some little ugly transitions but difficult ones to void due to the soundtrack/score. Anyway, thanks for providing this different point of view. It makes me think about some kind of “Zion Chronicles” recycling the erased zion shots Have you ever thought about this, CBB?

    Best regards,
    Master Kenobeat

    Review by kenobeat — November 28, 2008 @ 10:04 pm

13. 

    This is one of only a handful of fanedits I’ve actually seen, the others being Superman Redeemed (combining III and IV), X-Men Requiem War (all three movies), Superman – Last Son of Krypton (combines the first two movies) and Start Wars – Rise of the Empire (combining the original trilogy). To be honest I was starting to lose faith in fanedits as nothing more than a bit of fun or an excuse to cut through swathes of story and bring down the running time. Without wanting to be derogatory towards the other edits I’ve mentioned, Superman Redeemed just didn’t have the chance of being a good film given the source material (the edit was a vast improvement on the two movies though), Superman LSOK and X-Men both made drastic cuts to some of my favourite films in an attempt to improve a flawed sequel, but because of the cuts made to the first movies the edits will never be superior to them, and Star Wars, well, the opening crawls stretched out to four hours long would have been an improvement on the trilogy as originally released so that edit was bound to be an improvement.

    But this edit, given how unsatisfactory I found the original versions, is enlightening and entertaining. The pacing is great and the two and a half hours fly by. Still inferior to The Matrix, but hey, the editor didn’t have a budget of millions, a crew and a screenplay he could tinker with at whim, so given the limitations put on him I think this is a great job. I can see why some people feel that Morpheus didn’t get closure but I don’t think it’s all that important. Of the crew of the Neb who made it through to the sequels he’s the only one who lived. He played his part in getting Neo to where he needed to be so I think that it’s fitting that his fate is left hanging. I can honestly say that on viewing this it actually feels like a full movie in its own right and doesn’t need to sacrifice anything. Definitely a replacement to Revolutions and Reloaded in my eyes.

    To anyone who’s new to fanedits I would highly recommend this as an ideal one to start with. It is a perfect example of how improvements can and should be made, and highlights just what we could be missing out on by not giving fanedits a go.

    5/5

    Word of warning – when unpacking the archives for the DVD version using WinRar I received an error message for each file. The ISO file generated fine but Windows Explorer shut down every time I tried to open the folder it had extracted to. It’s not an infected archive – thorough malware and antivirus scans confirmed that – and it may have just been a corruption limited to my PC, but just in case it’s not and anybody else wants to avoid the same problems I encountered I recommend extracting it to a new folder away from any other files, buried in a tree of two other new folders with no other files in, and once the ISO has been created move it to your intended destination and delete the new folders.

    Review by latenights — January 18, 2009 @ 4:21 am

14. 

    I’ve debated back and forth as to whether or not to write this review, due to the fact that I myself have created a fanedit of “The Matrix” sequels and wanted to avoid any type of bias that may cause. So, to keep this review fair and balanced, I will not be making any contrasts between this fanedit and my own and will only be comparing it to the original theatrical versions from which it was derived from:

    “The Matrix Dezionized” by CBB

    I’ll make no bones about it: The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were some of the bitterest disappointments that I’ve had in a cinema. So many aspects of the sequels, were to put in mildly, “insanely half-assed”:
    - over 2/3 of the writing was atrocious
    - the new characters ranged from poorly developed (Niobe, Link, Mifune, Hamann) to the flat-out terrible (the Kid, Sati, the Councel, Roland, Locke)
    - previous characters introduced in the last film were either cheap knockoffs of their previous selves (Morpheus, Trinity) or just disappeared with nary a reference (Tank, I’m looking at you)
    - too much emphasis of bigger and better CG graphics and action sequences in place of Story and Character
    - self-referential moments that would devolve into self-parody of the first Matrix
    - the ending… oh god, the ending was wretchedly, mind-numbingly bad.

    Even to this day, I still refuse to believe that these later films were written during the same time as the first Matrix (either they were really written by Hollywood executives instead of the original creators or the Wachowski brothers are indeed a couple of hacks).

    In an effort to remove much of the crap, CBB has opted to remove every scene relating to Zion and has book-ended Revolutions to the end of Reloaded to tell a single continuous story of Neo’s journey as the One. I have no problem with cutting nearly half of the film’s runtime, but in this case, it’s what has been removed that keeps me from enjoying this edit. When it comes to fanedits, I believe very much in the advice of the Mike J Nichols (the Phantom Editor): “Not everything about a film has to be good, so long as it works for the further develop the plot and its characters”. Yes, many of the Zion scenes were terrible, but they did serve a purpose to the overall story of Reloaded and Revolutions (even if that story was terrible). In addition, for every removal that CBB makes which created a positive aspect, there was an unfortunate negative that reared its ugly head in its place. Yes, the Kid has been removed, but Sati still remains in the story and while a good chunk of her backstory with Rama-Kandra is taken out, the scenes that she remains in still portray her as being a “precocious little girl” (aka, so damn sickening-sweet and annoying that she could give Jake Lloyd a run for his money). Yes, Commander Locke and his poor subplots (Niobe love triangle, crappy leadership, hatred of Morpheus, etc.) are now gone, but Captain Roland scenes remain mostly intact and the character still comes across as a blowhard and asshole who hates Neo for no reason. Ultimately, what this edit shows is that there is many more things that do not work than just the Zion plot-point and that the story of these films is fundamentally flawed in more ways than one.

    I can also understand the desire to refocus the story back onto Neo, but honestly, the character was such an underwritten afterthought in the sequels that no amount of cutting can improve him. At least in the original versions, I can kind of distract myself with Niobe or Zee or Mifune, but with all those characters gone, my focus is back on an uninteresting and bland main character played poorly by an actor who doesn’t know where to take the character next.

    Another aspect which I had hoped that CBB would correct, but didn’t is what I refer to as “3-Year-Old Audience Syndrome” – this is the poor storyteller’s technique in which everything that visually happens onscreen is redundantly repeated by the film characters to the audience because the filmmakers miscalculate the intelligence of the audience (for further examples, look to the work of Roland Emerich and Michael Bay). In the Matrix sequels, this storytelling redundancy is given to other lesser characters such as Link, who is constantly cut to sitting at his console in order to pointlessly explain what is happening to Neo and crew in the Matrix while the audience is watching the EXACT same thing occur onscreen a few seconds later. As I said, I had hoped that CBB would remove or reduce these moments, but alas, they are still there.

    From the technical side, this edit was for the most part very well done. However, there were several choppy jump cuts that were rather distracting, most of which occurred during the film’s fight sequences (Burly Brawl, Neo VS Merovingian’s Guards, Super Burley Brawl, etc.). I definitely understand the desire to shorten these action sequences, but the editor/s should not forget the importance of visual continuity. Audio-wise, I can also live with a 2.0 Dolby surround mix, but the audio mix sounds somewhat off as both character voices and soundtrack are several pitches higher than what it’s suppose to be (as someone who’s familiar with the original versions, this can be quite annoying to listen to).

    In the end, no matter how many bad scenes of Zion are removed, the plot of The Matrix Dezionized follows the same path and reaches the exact same conclusion as the originals, which lays my biggest problem: the ending is still one of the most terribly acted, clichéd piece of climax garbage that I’ve seen in a modern film. Even worse, the removal of Zion and its inhabitants ultimately cheapens Neo’s “sacrifice” and “peace” between humans and machines – it’s kind of hard to care about the war’s end and the new peace/freedom for the last of humanity when you remove ALL of humanity from the story. The last words of the Oracle, Sati’s little rainbow “miracle”…. all are further reduced to pandering, overtly-sentimental storytelling that is ultimately hollow and emotionless to the audience.
    Just like the sequels to The Matrix themselves.

    Rating: 2.5/5

    Review by JasonN — January 26, 2009 @ 11:35 pm

15. 

    I’m not going to drag out my explanation too much as to why I like this edit,but as many have stated before me: the two sequels to the original Matrix were a bloody mess.Harsh words but nothing but the truth.Poor Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski fell in love with themselves and their Matrix universe to the point that they lost their sanity.The tale of Zion was just boring and the not-so-clever-riddles-filled dialogue made me cringe each time.I remember the strange feeling after having seen part 2 in the cinema,on one hand I was happy the long torture was finally over ,and on the other hand I was angry that I really had to see part 3 for the real ending.The worst part is the sad fact that I really hate Keanu Reeves,whatever he does seems boring and he`s been like this since early 90`s.I`m a sucker every time I pay good money as I hope,no pray, that the director can force Keanu Reeves into giving a memorable performance.No luck!

    This edit rips out the spinal cord of the Zion story mess and forces two movies into movie that even I,a Keanu Reeves hater,can watch without too much problem.
    Kudos for trying to salvage this story,must be real hard,and giving me more action(meaning less spoken meaningless drivel from dead face Keanu Reeves).
    This edit makes it easy to say,without lying:Sure I see The Matrix trilogy once a year.

    Review by ColdNorway — February 11, 2009 @ 1:08 am

16. 

    I liked it. I thought the approach worked very well overall. It got rid of A LOT of the crap. I would actually liked to have seen it cut down quite a bit more actually, but the crap that remains is still less objectionable than the fully stuffed pieces of crap released in the theaters. I actually followed the whole plot this time around (mostly). There were a few moments where it seemed like there was a little something missing, mainly with the little Indian Girl and the machines’ progress (or lack of) with drilling towards Zion. And the fights are still way over the top repeats of themselves. But again, still way superior to the originals IMO.

    Technically I was a bit shocked to see three or four rather inelegant video/audio transitions- being that I have only watched Boon’s more recent edits which have not had such issues. Interesting to compare some of the earlier work.

    An intriguing concept, fairly well executed. Could have been tighter in spots but mainly achieves its intent. It definitely shows just how dreadful the Zion scenes were. I always felt they were the worst parts of the movies and Boon has reinforced that for sure. The Matrix is much better when “De-Zionized”.

    Review by jokersmailbag — March 28, 2009 @ 7:12 pm

17. 

    I just watched DeZionized. Definitely better than the originals, though it was odd, as I don’t remember the parts cut… It has been awhile since I watched Reloaded and Revolutions. Unlike the others, I did not mind that Morpheous was absent from the end of the film. When Neo and Trinity go off to the Machine City, I thought it worked that that was Morpheous’s stage exit, though, had this been shot the way Dezionized was cut, Morpheous should have appeared at the end to save Neo and Trinity, a la Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode IV.

    Even though this was better, I wanted more from this fanedit (though that might be hard to create with a fanedit). Like the originals, this film was too complicated and lacked heart. I don’t think it’s mean to say that this film ended up being one long fight, with breaks for philosophical argument. It also goes without saying that I really disliked Agent Smith as a rogue agent, and what’s more the ending is horrible: all the main characters die?

    Pet peeves aside, I should note that none of these were the point of the film: To create a tighter film which focused mostly on the main characters from the original film (Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, Agent Smith) which lacked scenes in Zion. In that regard, I felt that the film succeeded (albeit, still, very long). As an aside, though: Without Zion, the character of Bane seems greatly arbitrary. This begs the question: While Zion was annoying, maybe some parts of it should have been kept; cf. In Star Wars, we still saw the rebel bases, even if we didn’t see much of them.

    Review by aarkus — June 7, 2009 @ 6:33 pm

18. 

    Matrix: Dezionized

    This is so far the best of the Matrix Sequel amalgamations I have seen yet it still has its problems. There is a clear agenda here and for the most part, it works quite well considering the limitations of the source material. Zion is not really missed yet in a way it is needed.

    The first Matrix movie is a journey of discovery for one man. We follow our hero as he learns of two environments, that of reality and that of the Matrix. With the sequels the filmmakers realized that another location was needed and introduced us to Zion. As the original narrative plays scenes in Zion break up those set in the Matrix or on hover crafts and this allows for some breathing room.

    Dezionized with one location eradicated leaves little room for pause. To take an example: We are treated to the lengthy and wordy scene with the French man in the dinning room and not too soon after he appears again in a nightclub. The passing of time between scenes has been so short that the motivations that we were left with in the first scene are obviously not present in the following scene. In this case the FanEdit feels awkward and abridged. However horrendous most of the scenes are in Zion, some are needed simply to allow an alternative to the Matrix or as this FanEdit proves things quickly become frenetic.

    I would have liked to have seen the Agent Smith fight heavily reduced and most of the PlayStation quality CGI removed. Most of the fights could have been reduced in length as they are simply gratuitous and lead no-where. It would be nice if just for once Neo finished off a villain with a single killer punch.

    I also noticed a few audio issues such as some sharp audio transitions and some audio clicks where shots were removed, the early briefing scene being a point in case. There were also some abrupt fades and a strange few seconds of blackness around the time Agent smith presents a “Gift” at the door while the briefing is going on.

    The feeling as a whole is of watching something that is not quite complete. The narrative of the original movies is confused and contrived but in the case of Dezionized it simply speeds that up, so in effect more confusion is added.

    This is the best of the Matrix FanEdits as it has a clear direction but I fear that these sequels will never be redeemed however much altering and cutting a FanEditor might do. Blame must rest at the Wachowski Brothers feet.

    6/10

    Review by Rock Savage — June 14, 2009 @ 12:40 pm

19. 

    This was better than the originals, but still not good. With the source material, I’m not sure it would be possible. I echo the complaint of JasonN regarding the leaving in of the Link moments describing what is happening (“…he caught her!” wow, good think you mentioned that because I wasn’t watching the screen). I also agree that the story just doesn’t seem to progress properly at certain times, due to the removal of supporting plot points. I had a hard time identifying what was missing, because I only watched the original films once (and that was 5 years ago).

    Review by TrevorL — September 24, 2009 @ 7:37 pm

20. 

    My second favorite Matrix edit, after Doctor M’s Hacked. It’s amazing how well this movie works without a single scene in Zion. And bonus points for including subtitles, something I wish more edits had. On a scale of 1 to 10 Frinks, this edit receives 9 Frinks.

    Review by TV's Frink — October 24, 2009 @ 3:51 am

21. 

    I enjoyed this big time. Zion was the weak link of the Matrix sequels and this cut gave me what I wanted: great action, a working and interesting plot and no visible cuts. My respect to the faneditor. I have watched this version numerous times and showed it to a lot of my friends, who felt the same. This does not turn the sequels into masterpieces, but into a really cool movie. Thanks.

    Review by matrixfan — October 30, 2009 @ 9:34 am

22. 

    It makes the Matrix sequels a lot less of a nightmare. Always granted that this is not “The Matrix” I had a lot of fun watching this.

    Review by Carrigan — February 8, 2010 @ 3:27 am

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