X-Men (2000)
On one hand, X-Men adopted within the predecessors of the earlier Marvel film launched in theaters, 1998’s Blade. Blade beat The Matrix to theaters and had loads of its personal kung fu, black leather-based, and industrial music. But in The Matrix, the leather-based felt like a fancy dress, a part of the change from the heroes’ common boring selves and into superheroic identities.
Viewers revisiting X-Men from the attitude of the superhero growth could surprise why the film crew deserted yellow spandex, however for viewers of the early 2000s, the black leather-based costumes felt very very like one thing a superhero ought to put on. Over the years, X-Men sequels would additional borrow from The Matrix, utilizing bullet time for the Nightcrawler opening in X2: X-Men United (2003) or Quicksilver’s set-piece in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).
Shrek (2001)
While it obtained extra acclaim on the time, Shrek doesn’t have way more artistic juice than Scary Movie. There’s extra of a coherent narrative, positive, however Shrek‘s writers additionally pile on each popular culture reference they’ll match into a really acquainted story.
By the time Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) does her variation on the Trinity mid-air freeze kick, the gag feels apparent as an alternative of unusual. Shrek does get a couple of additional factors for including the element of Fiona fixing her hair whereas suspended within the sky, and the combat scene in opposition to the Merry Men is well-choreographed. Still, it’s unhappy to see a second so revolutionary in The Matrix grow to be banal so rapidly in Shrek.
Kung-Pow! Enter the Fist (2002)
Another spoof film, one other Matrix reference. To its credit score, Kung-Pow! Enter the Fist has a low price range goofiness that units it aside from Scary Movie and Shrek. Furthermore, Kung-Pow! parodies Shaw Brothers kung fu pictures, and given the Wachowskis’ debt to the Hong Kong studio, the Matrix joke feels extra earned.
But the actual issue that units Kung-Pow! above its predecessors is the actual fact it bothers to inform an precise joke. When, in opposition to all warnings, the Chosen One (author, director, and star Steve Oedekerk) wanders right into a meadow, he’s instantly challenged by a horrid trying CGI cow. The two have a full-on kung fu battle earlier than they each do a Matrix-style bounce kick. But the cow wins out, which is all the time a humorous joke.
