Saw The Matrix Reloaded tonite. I herby sentence the Wachowski brothers to remedial screenwriting class. You will learn PACING and how to end a scene without the use of Deus Ex Machina. I swear, if Neo swoops down out of the sky to resolve some impossible situation even once in Matrix Revolutions I'm revoking their SAG card.
As for the pacing of the film, I can sum it up like this: Speech, fight, speech, fight, speech, fight, Neo fucking something, speech, fight... To make matters worse, they obviously chopped the hell out of the movie editing for time. Anything that wasn't a speech or fight felt rushed and cropped. It isn't often that I have trouble figuring out what's going on in a movie, I had some trouble following along with this one.
There's all these chads hanging off the script. Who's that kid following Neo around? Why is he left in? Just to give him the spoon? What about the LOOK HOW EVIL I AM guy? Who's he? What's going on in his head since Smith assimilated him (I failed to make the connection until after the movie was over)? What about the Neo cult? Maybe we'd have liked to see the big Zion counter-attack? Who's the pooftah holding the keymaster prisoner? What's his story? Why are programs getting jealous of other programs? What's the keymaster's story? etc.
Finally, and here's the real killer, the special effects weren't that special. Ok, the car chase was kinda neat, but everything else... well, we've seen it all before. We saw it in The Matrix and it was neat. But since we've seen it in video games, other movies, spoofs, commercials, etc... ya gotta do a little better than just more of the same. And really that's why I enjoyed the first movie. Rediculously over the top effects made up for all the other flaws. This one didn't do it, ergo the flaws leak out.
I had low expectations, that's why I enjoyed The Matrix so much, but this is just a flawed film. If Keanau Reeves is the messiah, let the robots kill me quickly.
there was a point in the movie that made me yearn to yell at the screen, 'OK I GET IT YOU WANT TO SHAG', after too many shots of the puppy dog fuck me looks they kept giving each other. I mean, what was the point of the neaderthal cave party complete with *gasp* exposed nipples? And, if you accept that Neo isn't really the messiah but rather a kickass kung-fu polymath Jesuit who has morphed the Summa from the lofty ideals of free-will [choice] to the more realistic self-interest [choice] you'll fare much better. I keep waiting for a character named Aquinas to materialise.
Sequels almost always suck mightily...sadly, they tend to make gobs of money anyway. Keanu Reeves is nice to look at in spite of that along with Lawrence Fishburnes voice like buttah.
The hype, the fight scenes, the CGI, the other fight scenes, the car chases, the dancing nudity, and the fight scenes were all carefully crafted to get the people into the theaters to see Neo so the other movies are less crowded. You should have seen A Mighty Wind instead.
If you need a fix from the Wachowski Universe, The Animatrix is quite satisfying. Some of the stories don't make sense, and some of the stories are really well done, from both the plot perspective and the production perspective. The collection serves as a nice omnibus of Anime techniques and styles, which was one of the goals behind the project.
On a completely different tangent, one theory one of my co-workers had is that the French guy (forgot his name) is actually a former "the one", now digitized. It would make some of what his jealous girlfriend says later on a bit more meaningful.
Re:Too harsh
rafael on 2003-06-09T09:00:41
The French guy's name is the Merovingian. It's the name of the oldest French dynasty. He's IMO far the best character in the film. The whole theater was laughing. (Lambert Wilson is a very well-known French actor.) And the erotic scene with the chocolate cake was pretty amusing.Too much reliance on fight scenes -- the multi-Smith fight costed a load of dollars, they were afraid to cut it down. And it's great, I suppose, for teenagers. But trimmed to 45 seconds, it would have been enough.
The kid that follows Neo everywhere in Zion apparently comes from one of the Animatrices. A spurious character in my opinion.
The non-Merovingian scene I enjoyed the most : when Neo tells to Morpheus that the Oracle is evil and that they've been completely screwed up. Morpheus was beginning to be annoying with his faith and his prophecies.
Movies that know what they are.
schwern on 2003-06-10T03:17:56
The first movie had the right pacing and enough interesting eye candy that I never had time to worry about things like the plot or character development. And that's a fine way to make a movie.
I have a concept about movies that know what they are. The Matrix knew what it was, a special effects festival. And it was good. Not a work of art, but a good movie. It wasn't cluttered up with unnecessarily large amounts of comic relief, drawn out romances, stirring speeches or exposition. A movie which does one thing well can cover up many, many flaws. From Night Of The Living Dead to Phone Booth.
Other movies don't really know what they are and they try to be everything. These are the deliberate attempts at blockbusters. Pearl Harbor, the two Star Wars prequels, any Roland Emmerich movie, and this latest Matrix. These are the Action/War/Drama/Romance/with-something-for-the-kids mish-mashes that try to be everything to everyone in order to reach the widest possible audience. And its like watching mud. Everything feels bolted on, from painfully distracting slapstick (Jar-Jar) to unnecessarily sappy drama (the President's wife being saved from her helicopter only to die again later [ID4]). You wind up with a film full of distractions when, in the end, the audience just wants to see the US Navy get plastered, starships fighting in deep space, the White House get blown up, and Neo say "I know Kung Fu".
Its better to make a good one-dimensional movie than to go for depth and fail.
