SPOILER: The Newest entry in the Matrix trilogy

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Okay, I went to see it on Wednesday night. I was totally entertained, but found a few things dissapointing. NOTE: None of my dissapointment stemmed from the visuals of the film.

Short list of things that bothered me...

1) Fight scenes, although amazingly done, lost the awe inducing impact just from the sheer number of similar fights in the movie. Not a horrible flaw if you really just like seeing people beat the crap out of each other.

2) So many character, so little depth. The first Matrix had what, 12 characters in it? This movie had such a large population to it, but no character in this movie felt fully developed. The character of the original seemed symbolic of larger things. This movie provides characters so thinly developed they seem more like cardboard cut-outs then 3 dimensional characters, or even symbols.

3) The first film had so much to do with the blurring between what is real, and what is not. It managed to catch us off guard, showing us that perceptions have so much to do with the world around us. It made us awestruck by the nature of the Matrix, and how powerful it truely is. The Matrix in this new film seems... not as mysterious, or as interesting as the first. The possibilities and implications of it are amazing, but this movie focuses more on just the same stuff established in the first rather than presenting us with something really new and bold.

4)Neo isn't a character we can identify with anymore. He's no longer the every man who is entering a new world just as we are. He's invincible, and less human. I left the first Matrix with this feeling that if you believed in yourself, you could acomplish anything. I left this movie if feeling that you could do anything, just as long as you were the program within the system designed to do anything.

Okay, now that I've insured I'm probably going to piss off anyone who is a die-hard Matrix fan, please give me your feedback...lol

― The Man they call Dan (The Man they call Dan), Friday, 16 May 2003 20:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I REALLY enjoyed it. For the most part. Wouldn't call myself a Matrix fanatic, but definetly a sci-fi fan.

The fights with Neo had a completely different tone in this one. Combined with the way they were scored made them as much dance numbers as fights. They where so fluid and graceful I found myself entranced by their beauty, and not caring that they weren't as dramatic as in the first. They really went for something different with the tone of the action... which was... hypnotic. From the time they enter the matrix through to the end of the freeway chase is as perfect a piece of sci-fi action cinema as I have ever seen. It had an almost 60's spy movie vibe about it.

The 'gatekeeper' sequence was so bizarre, so out of left field and so dense with information in such a short time that it practically was daring the audience to hate it. Great stuff.

All the 'real world' stuff and the way it was integrated on the other hand seemed like an after thought. Especially in the latter half. It was strange but the plot appeared almost non-existent. It was definetly there, but it seemed like the Wachowskis were way more interested in the poetry of motion, tone and some of their obscure ideas than in the machinations of plot (like all those council scenes and that Lock dude seemed like a digression). Some stuff just jumped and skipped over like it wasn't even there. I got the feeling they would have rather made an art film, and all that was just included to satiate the unwashed masses/studio execs.

Zion seemed like a sci-fi version of a 50's Roman epic, complete with Fishburn doing his best Yul Bryner impersonation. Something that really appealed to the cinephile in me. Maybe I'm going insane but I was kinda moved by the sex scene / tribal dance frenzy. And what was up with that wacky THX-1138 people in the clean white control room. I assume it was a 'virtual reality' based control room... or something.

The last 15 minutes where a sloppy mess. as if they couldn't wait to end it and get on to the next one. An extra ten or 20 minutes would've really smoothed over some rough patches in this picture.

What a strange anomaly of a film.

But man, I am in love with the middle third.

― PVC (peeveecee), Saturday, 17 May 2003 08:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I was pretty ambivalent about The Matrix, but it is going to be a slow weekend, I considered going to see the sequel. In preparation, I went ahead and tried to find a synopsis of the movie online and what I found sounded like some convoluted philosophical cult picture.

I'll pass for now.

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Saturday, 17 May 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Whoa, I was really disappointed and would even go so far as to say I actively disliked this film for all of the reasons Dan outlined above. The first half hour is deadly boring and when it gets to the hippy dance in Zion I was groaning and almost walked out, which I never, ever do. I really didn't care about any of the characters this time, and they kept throwing new ones at you without really developing them to the point where they mattered. Then, gratuitous fight scene (the most gratuitous one being the one with the Oracle's guardian...why was that there?). The movie looks good but is hardly the groundbreaking visual masterpiece the Wachowski's seemed to be promising. The most interesting characters in the entire film were the (and I'm going to screw up the name) Malovingian and his wife (meeeeowww!) just because their marital conflict and strife seemed really human (ironically, since I'm guessing they were actually programs).

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Saturday, 17 May 2003 15:08 (twenty-two years ago)

PVC- Yeah, I can see what you mean about the fights being like dances. I have no complaints about the action sequences and visual design of the movie. It was great eye candy, but to follow up such a rich, thought-provoking, human opening film as The Matrix with an overpowering, dehumanized follow up with a film seems rather odd. Perhaps this was exactly the effect the Wachowskis were going for, I'll have my final verdict in once the trilogy is complete. Morpheus' speech was over the top and out-of-character, it almost seemed as if the writers reduced this deep and brooding person who seemed complex and mysterious in the first film to a one-note charicature in the second film. Could it have been done better? As for the sex scene tribal frenzy, I'm pretty mixed about. Although I strongly suspect it's been included so that we can later learn that Trinity is now pregnant with Neo's baby, who will be the real messiah. Just a possibility. Also, there was something in that tribal orgy that went beyond my belief. All the men were hard bodied with 2% body fat, all the women were young and provocative. Normally that's just fine by me, but where were the real people?!?! I think the white room in Zion was supposed to be symbolic of the meaning of "Zion", meaning heaven. Our first glimpse of Zion shows us a white sterile room, everyone in white... rather angelic, before we are presented with the truth. I also felt like they should have ENDED the movies twenty minutes earlier... save the break in for the next film. I thought that's what was going to happen, and yet it continued...

Anthony- I think you're right, but I thought the visuals were pretty spectacular. All though, I would have liked to have seen something that seemed REALLY different. Zion was cool, but fit in with the visual lay out of the first film. I guess the closest really interesting visual lied in the TV screen filled room at the end. That was, for lack of a better term, fucking tripped out. I thought the most interesting character in the film was Agent Smith. He's the only one who seems to be evolving here... as for Malovingian (sp?) and his wife, she was interesting, he was more of a charicature. But I will give him a lot of credit for coming up with some good ideas about how chocolate cake should be served. I must get his recipe.

― The Man they call Dan (The Man they call Dan), Saturday, 17 May 2003 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

i should voice that i thought it was a turd, though i enjoyed it. what a contradiction, eh? but not, it was definitely entertaining and i enjoyed the action scenes. it's when the actors had to open their mouths that it lost me.

― j fail (cenotaph), Monday, 19 May 2003 18:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah j fail, I have the feeling that the more people watch this movie, the more they are going to be holding the same opinion as you. But what happens when computer technology makes it's next big jump, how will this movie hold out then?

― The Man they call Dan (The Man they call Dan), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 02:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Dan -- by those criteria no old science fiction flms would be good just because their special effects were 'outdated'. As far as bad acting goes, I'm a fan. Especially when it comes to genre cinema.

― PVC (peeveecee), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 06:13 (twenty-two years ago)

The last 15 minutes where a sloppy mess. as if they couldn't wait to end it and get on to the next one.

That's the catch, innit. The 2nd and 3rd movies are just one long 6-hour movie cut awkwardly in half. I'm reserving total judgement (and there WILL be judgement) until after the 3rd one is released. If the pacing is really set up for a long 6-hour marathon, then the Wachowskis are brilliant storytellers. If not, then fuck 'em.

Then, gratuitous fight scene (the most gratuitous one being the one with the Oracle's guardian...why was that there?).

Because he protects the Oracle. Presumeably he would have been able to beat anyone OTHER than Neo...

― jm (jtm), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 17:28 (twenty-two years ago)

it wasn't the abrupt cut that bothered me, I dug that. It was the non-linear intercutting style of the last act. like they were trying to compress 30 minutes of story into 10. It just lost any impact. But I love the architect scene -- it's one of the most strange and hypnotic scenes in a sci-fi movie in years.

― PVC (peeveecee), Friday, 23 May 2003 10:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Like I said before -- saying the fight scenes in this film are 'gratuitous' is like saying the musical numbers in Singing In The Rain are digressions. But then I'm a big fan of gratuitous digressions in movies.

― PVC (peeveecee), Friday, 23 May 2003 10:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Neo vs Agent Smiths is the best fight scene EVER on its own terms

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 23 May 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Kneel before Zod!

Sorry couldn't help myself.

― PVC (peeveecee), Friday, 23 May 2003 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

I completely agree with jm, Reloaded is so open ended that Revoloutions will either make or break it. Surely its tough to judge it, if it isnt even finished. I guess if it should be judged on anything, its how well it compells people to watch the next one and find out how it all concludes. Given that so many people are letting how non sensical things seem, be a reason for dislikning the movie, they should be interested in getting, if they can, the answers they felt deprived of, in Revoloutions.

People do seem to have a lot of different reasons for disliking Reloaded, I guess because it has such a diversity of stand alone aspects. I talked to one person who said they didnt much like Reloaded but they loved the orgy scene, I liked eveything but, myself.

― Sam G, Thursday, 26 June 2003 02:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I judge it thus: if I didn't go and just got a friend to explain it to me in 30 seconds, would I have missed anything? Well, the highway chase, duh, and the preceding scenes back to the bit in the restaurant (because it's fun to piss off causalists).

However, if "Neo vs Agent Smiths is the best fight scene EVER on its own terms" then its terms must really suck. If Neo (at that point) is a god, what's at stake? You can't strip ANY scene of emotional content and expect me to care, unless you're as insanely creative as Busby Berkeley. Yuen Woo-ping has reached this level occasionally but whatever he did here wasn't enough.

― b.R.A.d. (Brad), Sunday, 29 June 2003 03:17 (twenty-two years ago)

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