Ahhhhh. You have clearly articulated something that's bothered me for years. Of course! That's why The Matrix worked as opposed to Equilibrium.

And when one starts looking at the movies through that lens, it's everywhere. Iron Man
(2008) does the same thing. We see Tony Stark being Tony Stark; the movie tills the soil, lays the groundwork, plants the seeds for close to an hour before we get our first glimpse of armour. Even then, we at first only see the Mark I from the POV of frightened terrorists in dark caves - a Mook Horror Story like they say on TVTropes. That escape sequence is the same principle in miniature.

Terminator 2 as well is one of the rare sequels that matches or even surpasses its originator because it doesn't take the audience for granted. It re-earns our attention with establishing sequences (Sarah Conner in the asylum, John Conner hacking the ATM) before we get the big moment with the flowers and the shotgun.

Then, for a more recent and prolonged example, we of course have the entire first season of Game of Thrones. The preliminaries (i.e. politics and intrigue and sex and skullduggery) are so engrossing we barely even care if the magic shows up; this is precisely why so many other medieval-fantasy TV shows failed.

Thank you for the insight 👍👌