10 Dead Movie Franchises That Hollywood Must Revive

It’s almost universally acknowledged that the second and third Matrix movies - overlong, overambitious and overblown - didn’t hold a candle to the first. The cod philosophising completely got in the way of the central aesthetic of the first film: the idea of bringing a video game to life as an action movie, with state-of-the-art special effects and choreography working hand in hand to provide revolutionary action sequences.

Forget the stoned ramblings of the Architect and the Baudrillard-light pseudo-intellectualism: what we want to see are guns. Lots and lots of guns, and kung fu out the wazoo - and, most importantly of all, a hard reset.

That last isn’t the big stretch you’d think it is. This is, after all, a video game writ large, and anyone who’s ever owned a games console knows all about having to hit the big button in frustration when the thing freezes or dies. Well, that’s what’s happened here: the latest releases for the franchise were bugged to hell and back, and after a while the damn thing just stopped playing altogether.

Cast Keanu Reeves as the returned Neo in a cameo: either as the villain or some souped up recluse that gives the heroes their mojo. Limit the amount of time spent in the monumentally crappy ‘real world’. Cast a couple of bright young things that look good in pleather trousers and storyboard yourself some lean, devastatingly off-the-wall action sequences - probably two or three more than you think is reasonable for a ninety minute popcorn flick - and go nuts.

In these superhero-heavy times, you’ll have to work hard to trump Norse gods, armoured one-liner-machines and giant green rage monsters… but that’s the beauty of the Matrix. Anything can happen.