The Matrix Trilogy

The universe created in the Matrix films is indeed astounding. Let me start the discussion of the films there. The concepts at play and philosophies brought to light due to the nature of that world are remarkable, clever and, most of all, extremely relevant. The design of the films, especially of the “Real World,” are gripping, detailed and majestic. I only wish more of the Real World had been depicted, but more on that later.

The first ninety minutes of The Matrix are terrific; visually speaking there isn't a negative word to be said about it. The Wachowskis manages to seamlessly blend styles and themes from sci-fi, neo-noir and martial arts films. Especially the sequences depicting the Real World are masterfully designed. The image of the giant microphone-shaped walkers harvesting the stalks of human eggs is particularly breathtaking, and will stay with me for quite a while. This amalgamation of aesthetics, especially in those first ninety minutes, creates a singular visual style that doesn't really exist in the two sequels.

 

Thematically speaking there are some things lacking, however. The main philosophical angle of the film is epistemology: the examination of knowledge and what can be said to be true and real. Until Neo ingests the red pill, his reality is the Matrix and everything contained in it; his job, his messy apartment, his hacker friends. But once that pill is ingested and Morpheus shows him the Real World and explains the nature of the Matrix, Neo's entire sense of reality and existence is irrevocably shaken. In is out, left is right, asleep is awake. Things as simple as household objects no longer maintain their value; “There is no spoon.” Considering how shattered his understanding of reality has become, Neo adapts to it a little too well. He blindly excepts that over here is reality, over there is the Matrix, and never the 'tween do they meet. Not once does he question “How can I know whether this reality isn't still a part of the Matrix, or yet another program?” To snap open the jar of confusion that is epistemology and not have at least one breakdown from someone question the existence of his own body and mind feels cheap to me, and does a disservice to the field of philosophy.

 

I will say, however, that the film does well to explain the nature of the Matrix, the discord between it and reality and why it exists without coming across as tutorial. Given the massive amount of information needed to make the audience understand this universe, the film breaks it down succinctly and clearly without reading like stereo instructions. The film also does well to leave the decision of which pill to take up to the viewer. The film presents both arguments as valid, through the characters of Morpheus and Cypher, and allows the audience to weigh the costs and benefits without preaching one answer over the other.

 

My biggest problem with the film, however, is the last forty-five minutes. The first ninety are set up as a genre-splicing mystery story, with heavy importance placed on visuals, character development and its underlying themes. That changes drastically, however, when Neo starts doing cartwheels during a massively overdone, eye-raping gun fight. There are action sequences in the first part of the film, but they are mostly hand-to-hand combat and are within the scope of an admittedly fast-paced, but ultimately still a mystery tale. The ending becomes a simple, cheap, long special effect, filled with helicopter crashes and oversized explosions worthy of Michael Bay. The film is great at foreplay, but when it comes time to get down to business the film ejaculates prematurely. The delicious can of jelly beans the film opened turned out only to be filled with stupid spring-loaded snakes.

 

Moving on now to Reloaded, which was superior to The Matrix in some ways, inferior in others. Visually it was inferior. The look and feel of the second film was much more clean and sterile than the first. It didn't have the same noir style, grit and edge that the first did and felt more like other sci-fi films of the last decade plus. Also the city of Zion – the Real World capital of the rebellion – was visually cool but not as striking or mesmerizing as anything from the first film. Also with Zion evolving into a lively if somewhat primitive metropolis makes the discrepancy between the Real World and the Matrix seem less great, and therefore the theme of the value of truth and reality versus the ignorant bliss of the Matrix is less pertinent, and the choice between the two less daunting.

 

I guess it's good then, considering the development of Zion, that the philosophical underpinning of this film shifts from that of the first. Epistemology and the choice between reality and illusion are replaced by the new debate of determinism, of freedom of choice versus cause and effect. Like the first film, the Wachowskis choose to leave the ultimate decision more or less up to the viewer. It could be argued that by virtue of Neo saving Trinity at the end of preventing the outcome he saw in his dream that freedom prevails, but it could also be argued that the recurring existence of The One as explained by the Architect that causation prevails. The viewer is free to choose which argument holds water and which does not (or perhaps each viewer is predestined to select one argument over the other).

 

For the majority of the film the philosophical debate felt forced. The characters seemed to argue their points back and forth without a lot of plot development to reinforce the necessity of their debate other than the recurring imagery of keys and doors, referring to a common hypothetical used to summarize the debate. But once we meet the Architect, that all changes. His existence – more precisely his role and his manner – his explanation as to the existence of The One as the “systemic anomaly,” and the recurrence of Zion and The One, make the idea and debate over free will more than just a passing bout of mental masturbation. The question now takes on much greater importance, to both characters and viewers, and makes it all the more difficult to select an answer.

 

The action sequences in this film were certainly more frequent than in the first film. From the opening sequence we have gun chases, slowed bullets, crashes and explosions. This makes the action a more definitive and constant player in the film. The freeway scene, about half way through the film, is not only wonderfully choreographed, shot, and kept within a reasonable scope, but establishes action sequences as part of the overall pacing and mood of the film. That way, when we get to the climax of the film, the conclusive battle doesn't feel out of place and cheap, the way the ending to the first film does.

 

The third film, Revolutions, exists only as a conclusion to the series. It brings forth no new philosophy, no new character development, and cannot stand alone the way either of the first two films can. Some of the visuals are beautiful and exciting, but there's no meat behind them to make them valuable. It's nothing but action sequences that include mini-Transformers, a blind Neo who now sees with heat vision, a strange talking head inside Machine City, and an ultimate fight scene between Neo and Agent Smith that starts off well but goes on far too long and ends poorly. Not to mention the aimless subway-station sequence that goes as quickly and unexpectedly as it comes and really adds nothing to the film. Ultimately it feels way too rushed and simple.

 

When looking at the series as one entity, I have to give immense credit to the Wachowskis for creating such a marvelous fictional universe. It is unique, poignant, intricate, visually stunning, and it makes you think about so many things on so many levels. However, when it came down to how they executed their films, I have to chastise them a bit. If I could travel back to when they were first planning The Matrix, I might advise them to slow down their thoughts a bit. I'd ask them to think more about what Neo is going through, not just the upheaval of his perception, but his role through the hero's journey, his path to accepting his new role as this Christ-like figure and what it means to him. I'd ask them to clear up their themes relating to religion, which grew quite scattered over the three films – Isn't it strange and ironic that the group that advocates the acceptance of reality over the comfort of illusion, a common secular opinion, also holds dear concepts of belief and hope and deify Neo as The One and their savior? Most of all, I'd want them to determine how much action they want to put in their films, and to keep that level of action more or less constant over the three films, so that the end of the film does not seem an aberration compared to its beginning and middle, and the third film an aberration to the first two. If the Wachowskis had done these things, The Matrix franchise might arguably stand alone as the greatest sci-fi achievements of all time. But, unfortunately, it will stand in my mind, despite its few triumphs, as a disappointment, a failure of execution to live up to the promise of its premise.

Sukiyaki Western Django

At first there were American Westerns. Then there were Spaghetti Westerns (Westerns made in Italy). And now, choosing an equally stereotypical genre name, there are Sushi Westerns.

Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django is the Sushi Western. The plot of the movie is that there are two rival clans, the Red and the White, battling for control of a town and the hidden treasure the town supposedly contains. In enters a stranger, a Man With No Name, if you will, offering his services as a sharp shooter and treasure seeker to which ever side will reward him more handsomely.

This stranger, however, is not really the main story line of the film. The main story line, of which there are a few, and the most interesting one in my opinion, is that of a woman from the White clan who had married and had a child with a Red clan member. For the betrayal to the clan, the leader of the Reds took out the husband, with his wife and son present to witness it, and the wife consequently returns to the White clan in a plot to exact her revenge. When all-out war erupts between the two sides, the wife, her son and the husband's mother try to flee the town but are dragged into the battle at a dire price.

Solid performances are all around in the film, but especially but the main characters of this particular story line. There is such pain and hardship suffered by the mother and son that it's almost impossible not to root for them, and they're probably the only characters in the film worth rooting for. The other characters in the film are pretty cool and badass, but the mother and son are truly sympathetic, and I only wish there had been more of them in the film.

Considering that the film features Quentin Tarantino as a bit player, who is also a friend of Miike's, it's no surprise that the film takes influences from so many diverse places and piles them together. Japanese influences, such as samurai films like those of the great Akira Kurosawa, and Japanese anime, are spliced together with the Western influences, especially the Spaghetti Western stylization of battle scenes and tense gun duels.

Even the language reflects the internationality of the film. It's a film with a Japanese director and writers, and aside from Tarantino the entire cast is Japanese, yet the film is made in English. Miike had directed the Masters of Horror episode "Imprint" in English, so he's familiar with directing in English. But, in that film, there was an American character, so there's a reason for it being spoken in English, and the strange accents added to the uneasiness of "Imprint," it being a horror movie after all. Here, that effect is not achieved; the film isn't really meant to make you uneasy. Instead you just wonder if the actors really knew what their dialogue meant or whether they were just taught how to pronounce the lines, particularly when they used Western jargon like "a day late and a dollar short." That doesn't mean that they're performances suffered--Ron Perlman did the same thing when he spoke French in The City of Lost Children and he was just fine in that film. But the language does add an awkwardness to the film that probably wouldn't have been there if it were made in Japanese.

The film is undeniably exciting and lavish. The art direction is superb; the mixing of the American West and Medieval Japan costumes was done very well, and the sets, from the painting of Mount Fuji in Tarantino's flashbacks to the ending showdown in the falling snow, were simply beautiful. Not to mention how simply cool the dramatized gun slinging and epic battle scenes were. Gatling guns, dynamite, and sword fights. Oh my!

Tarantino's films, that also take influences from everywhere and combine them, always seem to add to a nugget of intelligence, a philosophical idea that grounds the film and explains the characterization. It's why I have a great respect for his films. This one, however, doesn't seem to find that theme quite as well. There are messages toward the end of "shit happens," of living life without fear and dealing with whatever life throws at you. These are cool ideas that wrap up the movie nicely, but I wouldn't say they carry the film or press the action the same way the ideas in Kill Bill (or a similarly strong film) do.

Despite the film's lack of a strong philosophy, the film is still definitely worth seeing. The action sequences are epic, the costume design is really cool, and the film is just inherently watchable. As long as you don't expect a deep, moving film, the spectacle is a lot of fun.

The Horde

In an era full of dozens of the same standard zombie flick, it's hard for one film to stand out from all the rest. However, The Horde is a film that manages to do so without being too revolutionary or ground-breaking.

 

The Horde is a fairly unheard of, at least not here in the States, French zombie film centered around a group of cops that raid a run-down apartment building looking for the group of thugs that took out one of their own, only to be descended upon by the undead masses. Now both groups must work together to escape the horde.

At the end of the day, the film brings nothing new thematically to the table. The idea of two warring factions having to "put aside their differences" in order to survive has been done countless times, and the rest of the film follows a straight-forward zombie apocalypse movie. Even the technical aspects of the film are in keeping with typical horror and action films. However, the simple timing, execution and sheer violence of the film makes it one not to miss.

Step aside, Tom Savini; this is perhaps the most violent zombie film ever! A man bashing a zombie's skull into a cement pillar over 20 times shot with a sped-up camera, a man atop a car swinging wildly at a congregation of zombies with a machete, and an old geezer mowing down zombies with a machine gun. Not to mention more hand-to-hand combat between humans and zombies than this reviewer has ever seen in a film, which is quite strange to see. They establish fairly early on that only head shots will kill the zombies, yet we continually see them fighting zombies with their fists and feet. It's still violent, but a different type of violence than zombie films are used to producing.

 

The timing of all the jump scares is simply impeccable; not a single second or edit in the film is wasted, keeping the viewer tense and on-edge throughout the entire film. When a shotgun blast destroys a door and kills one of the cops, it's preceded by a slow section of silence while the cops try to sneak up to the door, and timed perfectly to deliver an exhilarating jolt; not to mention the jagged hole left in the door, about three-feet in diameter, later serves for a nice bit of menacing imagery.

Where other films have failed at making a zombie action flick, namely Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, this film succeeds by keeping the style of action flicks. Every main character is such an unlikeable asshole, the lighting is extremely dark and high contrast, the tempo and editing approach the speed of the Crank movies at times, and all the violence is of the style of an action, or even martial arts, film. Rather than trying to blend some action film elements into a zombie horror film, The Horde keeps all the elements of action films, and so the audience isn't left in limbo as to what genre of film it is; it's an action film!

The fact that every character is an asshole is both fun and predictable. It's fun because it keeps the tension high throughout the film, and predictable because the audience knows the characters will get pettily angry over the most trivial of things. Day of the Dead, Romero's third in his series, manages to pull off this trick masterfully without becoming predictable at all. Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher, The Horde's directors, would have been well-suited to take some notes on how Romero managed the feat.

I also liked the ending of the film. Throughout the film there had been small little reminders as to why the cops had invaded the building in the first place. Without giving away too much of what the ending entails, the film manages to wrap up its basic story line between the cops and thugs in a simple, subtle and gripping way, while still leaving the matter of the zombie mob to be reckoned with; a very smart and astute way to conclude the film.

This film has a little in it for everyone. For the movie critic, there is skill and intelligence used in crafting this film (whether the horde of zombies is a metaphor for the proletariat can certainly be debated). But, for the balls-out action and horror fan, there's still plenty of violence and badassery to go around.

Die Hard

Action films are always difficult for me to critique. Save a few exceptions, namely action films that fall a bit closer to the heist, crime or revenge genre labels, such as Oldboy, Kill Bill or Bonnie & Clyde, I really don't care too much for the genre. At all. They are almost always lacking in artistry and social commentary. I understand that fans of these movies find the gunfights and explosions "awesome" and "epic." I just find them boring.

 

Die Hard is a film that has an occasional, and I stress that word, hint of intelligent, artistic film making in it. For example, on two specifically memorable occasions, John McClane and Hans compare John to the action hero screen legends of the past, e.g. John Wayne, Roy Rogers (the codename John uses when talking to Sergeant Al), which leads to the larger comment on the "all Americans are cowboys" stereotype. This is interesting, but it's only sparingly mentioned, and mentioned in such an goofy and cheesy way that I didn't feel that any true, significant statement was being made about the stereotype.

One aspect I did like is that the film began with exposition. Most action films will begin with a scene of action to establish the excited mood and feeling that accompanies an action film, then slow down later to get to the characterization. This film opens with the characterization, allowing the audience a chance to get to know and sympathize with John even before stuff starts going down, which I thought was a nice and appropriate change of pace from what I expected. John is such an "every man" that the film needs to open with getting to know him and establishing him as such, rather that an over-the-top action scene to establish that you're watching an action film; the rest of the movie makes that crystal clear.

I also liked the pacing and editing of the first thirty to forty minutes or so of the film. I liked the transition between the slow, tender moments with John and Holly, to the quick, chaotic moments with Hans and his team. I like how this shows, especially after the terrorists make their presence known, that John shows his duality between being the every man dealing with the stresses of family life, and the badass cop "playing by his own rules," as the cliche goes.

But, sadly, these are really the only few moments in the film I enjoyed. Once the action begins, it does not let up. In fact it becomes so overbearing that no artistry whatsoever can peek its head into the production. All the bits of story, plot and character development, and suspense are so obvious and cliche that they were of no interest to me. John McClane's bravado and cocksureness, with his clever one-liners and imperviousness in gunfights, make it impossible for the viewer to doubt that he will triumph before credits roll.

For a film like this to work, I would say there are two options. One option is to make your lead character more vulnerable. Inception, for one, does a marvelous job of this. Cobb is such a vulnerable, conflicted character that the audience genuinely doubts whether he will succeed in his mission; even after the film ends, and the totem continues to spin, that doubt still lingers. The other route is to break the fourth wall, or even break what I call the "third-and-a-half" wall. Kill Bill does very well in doing the latter. Watching the film (I consider both volumes as one film), I get the sense that Tarantino knows his film is predictable, but by referencing past films, some of which had also been predictable, and by making the experience remarkably beautifully photographed and set-up, not to mention much better performances from Uma Thurman and David Carradine that Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman manage to bring to the table, Kill Bill is also able to succeed where Die Hard failed.

If your thing is action films with little artistry and social importance, a fun exciting ride without a real raison d'etre, then Die Hard will most definitely be found in your section of the video store. And God bless you for that. However, you probably won't find me in that section. You can probably find me in the foreign, classics, or horror sections instead.

Sucker Punch

Amazingly beautiful cinematography and visuals. Kick-ass music that interweaves perfectly with the story. Very lovable, sympathetic protagonists and an overbearing, despicable antagonist. A strong and uplifting central theme. Stir all these in a pot, cook at 450 degrees for 110 minutes, and you get the wicked ride that is Sucker Punch.

The film opens with a silent, slow-motion sequence of Emily Browning's character and her sister losing their mother and then being assaulted by their stepfather, set to a slowed-down version of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (think Marilyn Manson's version, but less creepy). Browning and her sister's innocence and vulnerability, and her father's menacing stare, makes the scene incredibly affective. Not to mention the terrific camerawork--closeups of a button torn from Browning's shirt as it spins on the ground, a light bulb as it explodes from a gunshot, and a winding shot through a keyhole and into the reflection in Browning's eye of her stepfather approaching her sister with bad intent. A harrowing and devastating start to the film, to say the least.

From there we're taken to the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane, where the evil stepfather plans to commit Browning. As Browning is about to be lobotomized, the scene suddenly turns from a grungy hospital room to the glitz and glamour of a stage where a similar scene is being rehearsed. We have now entered the first layer, if you will, of escape. Similar to Inception, Sucker Punch jumps back and forth between layers, but instead of jumping between layers of dreaming, here we're jumping between Browning's consciously-created reveries used to escape from her awful incarceration. But unlike Inception, each layer of reverie serves as a microcosmic metaphor for the layer just above it.

The first layer of escape consists of an exotic dance hall where the girls, that is Baby Doll (Browning), Sweet Pea, Rocker, Blondie and Amber, are forced to dance for their scumbag boss's sleazy clients. The girls ban together to form an escape plan, for which they must first collect four items: a map, a source of fire, a knife and a key. To collect each item, Baby Doll does a dance in order to distract a certain person so that another girl may stealthily pick their pocket. For each of these dances, for the first three items at least, Baby Doll takes us to the second layer of reverie, and each of these sequences is a fantastic over-the-top battle scene in which the girls, lead by Scott Glenn of all people, must collect the appropriate item from layer one.

Each battle scene contains amazingly choreographed fight scenes, gorgeous landscapes, and little snip-its that advance the overall theme unique to each battle (one scene is even set to a cover of The Stooges' "Search and Destroy!") In just about any other context these battle scenes would have seemed self-indulgent and gratuitous. But, in the context of a fantasy world within a fantasy world, where almost no sense of reality is maintained, these scenes work completely. In fact, just how over-the-top these scenes are actually furthers the idea of escapism from the horrors of reality.

Throughout the film the editing is top-notch. But especially in these battle sequences is the editing perfectly timed. In the third of these scenes, in which the girls are looking to steal the cook's knife, a snag occurs and Baby Doll is forced out of her reverie of removing a bomb from a train, and back into the cook's kitchen. Without good editing, the viewer could easily get confused as to what's going on in each location, and even which layer of reverie the movie is in at a given moment. Thankfully, the superb editing in the film allows the viewer to always understand which reverie they're watching and what is happening in that location.

Next up we learn that the boss, Blue, has learned about the escape plan after one of the girls snitched to him out of fear. While lecturing the entire dance squad about his power over them, he unflinchingly executes two of the main girls in a surprising fit of egotistical rage. Up until this point, all the violence had been very stylized and action-driven. These two murders occur at point-blank range with a simple handgun; no thrills or dramatic camerawork to distract from the gun blasts and screams of the dance crew.

Later on, as Baby Doll and Sweet Pea are set to escape, Baby Doll is forced to sacrifice herself by distracting the guards, so that Sweet Pea can flee. Once Baby Doll is killed in the reverie, we jump back to reality, and the previously cut-off lobotomy is completed. We're devastated to see Baby Doll have to die, but we're comforted by the idea that Sweet Pea safely escaped and can tell the world about the horrors that went on in that wretched place.

This conclusion, and the film altogether, forces us to ask the question, as the film does itself in several places, who the story is really about, and who are all stories really and truly about? I think the film would say that every story is ultimately about you. Even if you're not a post-feminist teenage girl stuck in an insane asylum, you can relate to the struggle in the film to escape a poor reality and create a better one for yourself. The film reminds us that we all have the weapons at our disposal to make our lives ones worth living, to escape any horrid existence we find ourselves in and shape it into whatever we want. We just have to fight for it.

On Genre Theory

My last film review was a partnering with a friend to cover [Rec] and [Rec] 2, two in-your-face, over-the-top zombie films with tons of scares, gore and excitement. Now, feeling that I have to balance my geek side who wets himself over crazy fright-fests with my intelligent, sophisticated film connoisseur and aficionado side, here's a brief treatise on film genre theory.

Back when I was a student at NIU, I founded the NIU Horror Club, a campus group meant for watching and discussing horror films. Stuck within the paradigm of "horror" club, our members would often debate whether a given film that we showed fell within the horror genre. Each member had their own idea, usually based on their tastes and preferences, about what the horror genre was about. In this essay I will attempt to describe what horror, and all the other popular film genres, are "about."

It should come as no surprise that all the films grouped into one genre must have something in common, specifically something at their core that is absolutely vital to the nature of those films. Given the most commonly referred-to genres, and the ways in which they are discussed, I have concluded that there are two major principles that make up a genre: what is seen in the film, and what is felt by the viewer.

Horror is a very diverse genre that has taken many different forms. Films described as horror can portray serial killers; demons and monsters, both terrestrial and otherwise; viruses; murderers; haunted houses; and many other scary things. The scary thing can be clear and obvious, like Jason Voorhees, or more subtle or even unseen, like in The Blair Witch Project. These film are so diverse that they have little in common as far as what is actually seen on the screen. What they do have in common is the feeling of fear that is evoked in the viewer.

Comedy is another film genre along these same lines. Comedy can come from so many distinct places that iconography cannot be used to classify this genre. Instead the experience of laughter and the overall lightheartedness that comes from laughter is what defines a comedy.

Other modern genres of film that are of this type include romance, thriller, and drama films. The feelings of true love are what define a romance film. The excitement and suspense felt by the audience make a thriller. Drama sometimes acts as a left-over bin, meaning a film that doesn't clearly fit into the other groups falls here, but dramas are characterized by strong emotional attachments to a character that may not be specifically related to fear, humor, love or excitement.

All the genres that are defined by what is felt are defined as so because the iconography in those films are so varied. On the other side of the coin, there are film genres that have very similar iconography but varied moods and tones that accompany them.

Science fiction is a genre defined by its iconography of aliens, outer space, spacecrafts, computers, robots, and other things related to modern-day technological advances. These films can take very different tones and evoke very different emotions. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a sci-fi film that's very artistically crafted and awe-inspiring, with subtle themes of humans being replaced by something more intelligent. Alien is a sci-fi film that's very suspenseful, frightening and claustrophobic. This year's Paul has the images of sci-fi but is very much a comedy. This films listed have disparate emotions that they create in viewers, but are similar in the images shown on the screen, which is why they can be grouped into the same genre.

Western is another genre categorized by imagery: The Wild West, revolvers, cowboy hats, horses, tumbleweeds. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; True Grit and Blazing Saddles are disparate in the reactions to them, but are similar in the imagery depicted.

Other film genres of this type are action, fantasy, war, crime and musicals. All these genres have lists of imagery and events depicted that allow movie theorists to group them together, whether it be explosions and gunfights, fanciful creatures, battle scenes, bank heists or song and dance numbers. Each film can use its genres imagery to tell different stories with different themes, but they're still part of the same genre.

One thing to keep in mind about genres is that they're almost always approximations. The Matrix, for example, has imagery from sci-fi, action and neo-noir films, making it a difficult film to place into a visual genre. Most DVD stores divide their selection by genre, and store owners and employees have to use their best judgment when placing films like The Matrix and other genre-bending films.

Which brings me to my next reminder that film genres are never mutually exclusive. In fact, to really get an accurate description of what to expect with a film, it really should come with at least one visual and one emotional genre: a "sci-fi/horror" or an "action/thriller." The Matrix does not have to be permanently lumped into one genre when it can so easily be described as several others.

Hopefully this little blurb has provided some of you with a new way of looking at film genres. Possibly I've supplied an interesting rambling about movie stuff. At the very least I feel I've done something intellectual with this little blog of mine. So there.

Memento

It's a movie told backwards. That's unique and inventive. That makes it amazing. Right?

Actually, no it doesn't. And it's not even that unique or inventive. Several films have used this story-telling device, Gaspar Noé's Irreversible for one, and used it to better effect.

In Memento the story-telling device makes sense thematically. He has no short term memory, so he loses place of where he is and what he's doing and has to figure that out from his notes, photographs and tattoos. He's trying to build what's going on without knowing what just happened, and so is the viewer. The problem in doing that is it makes the storyline insanely difficult to follow, especially when the story is this intricate and complex. Even those who are able to follow the story feel as if their mind had just run a marathon.

The difference, though, between a marathon and Memento, is that after completing a marathon the runner is rewarded for his or her feat with a sense of accomplishment. Memento doesn't reward the viewer with enough deepness or amazing photography or overwhelming performances to compensate for the mental gymnastics he or she had to do to simple understand the story.

The ultimate conclusion or statement behind the film is that we all lie to ourselves; we "make our own realities." The twist that reveals this idea is surprising, as almost all twists are, but that's because it comes out of nowhere. For a twist to really hit home, there needs to be doubt in the minds of the viewer concerning the subject matter of the twist, like in The Sixth Sense or Fight Club. Otherwise the twist is just forced upon the viewer, and more or less evokes the same reaction as a deus ex machina; a feeling of being cheated. If you're gonna make me run through hoops like this, you gotta give me something more profound than "I make my own reality."

Christopher Nolan is usually pretty understated with his cinematography, but 

here, because the story is so tough to follow, he has to be extra sparse with it. The audience is just following the story, and has no beautiful photography to marvel at along the way. Also Guy Pearce's dead pan performance is a little off. Dead pan acting usually suggests an inner conflict which leads to indecision and a sense of not knowing how to feel. Lenny doesn't really seem to suffer from this conflict. He's supposed to be chasing his wife's murderer; why is he so calm and restrained in doing so? Shouldn't he be more angry, aggressive and frantic?

It's somewhat frustrating to feel obligated to make the comparison between Memento and Irreversible, but due to the similar and rare device we are forced. Irreversible succeeds with this device where Memento fails for several reasons. The story of Irreversible is much simpler and more straightforward--it's easier to follow when told backward. The cinematography of Irreversible is amazing, allowing us to marvel at it and keep us going while we try to put together the story. The argument behind Irreversible for hard determinism--"Time destroys everything"--is much stronger and more hard-hitting than "I make my own reality." Vincent Cassel in Irreversible is also chasing his lover's killer, but is more emotional and desperate than Pearce in his pursuit, as someone in such a dire position should be. These differences admittedly are in part due to the different tones of the two movies, but it still seams that Irreversible and other achronological films, such as Nacho Vigalondo's Timecrimes, were later able to fine-tune this story-telling concept and make it more compelling and meaningful.

There is no question that Memento deserves an "A" for effort. The script is intricate, detailed and precise, and the scenes in black and white that are played forward, with Pearce on the phone with the cops, and wonderfully done. But you have to ask just how much does the film gain by being unraveled in reverse? The story was be just as compelling and meaningful if it were told forward, and the audience wouldn't have headaches trying to put together scenes in reverse order.