In the wake of The Matrix the world was overwhelmed with bullet time parodies. If you were a comedy in the early-naughties and weren't having a character dodging projectiles in slow-mo or hanging in mid-air then you just weren't quite with times. It was so ubiquitous that by the time the sequels to the film itself rolled around it seemed like even they were getting in on the act. The final, climactic battle between Neo and Agent Smith not only borrows heavily from Dragonball Z, but essentially serves to mock everything people had previously loved about the series. And not in a way that could be construed as being self-referential either. Bullet-time is used to show something as trivial as a punch, the gravity defying antics are pushed to ridiculous levels and the whole seriousness of the watching Smiths is far from menacing. The Wachowski's probably thought they were upping the scale, but they were in fact showing the flaws within the logic of their own universe - it worked in the original because it was restrained. This fight is just one major example of many moments from the latter half of Revolutions that genuinely have us chuckling through the trilogies finale. For a series that was once trumpeted for its originality, it was pretty unforgivable. Which other movies would you say became parodies of themselves? Tell us in the comments below.
