The Matrix Reloaded

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Here are my opinions on this movie, which I saw last night. I just kind of copy/pasted them from another forum, but you'll get the idea.

WARNING: Contains spoilers!

Oh please, come on people. This has to be one of the most overrated movies I have EVER seen. I thought the action scenes were extremely boring due to the fact that everyone was pretty much invincible. Who would have thought they could have ruined a scene with 1000 agents vs Neo. Of course, it never looked like it was a real challenge, and was an incredibly boring scene to watch, except for the flaunting of the CG.

The car chase was equally unexciting. Cars crash into each other and do about 10 flips in the air. I'm sorry, but if you call that realism, I suggest you try and do the same thing on the highway and see what happens. The effects didn't blow me away as much as the first one, except maybe for the explosion on the truck and Neo coming in to save the day (with bullet time, of course). Come on people, "The best car chase scene ever"? Rent Ronin, now THAT's a chase scene.

Another problem is the over usage of Bullet Time. It's a great gimmick, but they use it so much that not only is it no longer impressive, but it makes the fight scenes even more boring.

Returning to the fact that Neo is invincible, what's up with his new Superman flying powers? It simply makes everything uninteresting. Not once did he seem in peril at all, or did anything he was doing seem dangerous. Kind of felt like watching a giant beat up a midget for 2 1/2 hours. I thought he would have a worthy adversary at least, and maybe that would come in the form of those twins. Unfortunately, they were killed off 5 minutes after they arrived. Boooooring.

The story was nothing other than weak. It followed the exact same pattern as the first one, and got tiresome. Monologue, fight, monologue, fight. The speeches on following your destiny and other such junk were useless and have already been said in the first movie. There were also other useless scenes, including the massive dance/orgy that lasted about 15 minutes. Not only did it not add to any of the intrigue or excitement, but it didn't move the story along at all and was just unnecessary.

Not to mention Trinity's "wonderful" resuscitation by Neo. Wow, wasn't it impressive when Neo stuck his hand into her chest and massaged her heart. Yeah, right. [/sarcasm] I couldn't stop laughing at all the dumb things in this movie.

People talk about the first one like it's one of the best movies ever made. While it WAS a very impressive movie technically, and the script was innovative, it didn't require a sequel in my opinion, and certainly not two. You just knew they were going to try to hard to outdo themselves, and the result we get is a botched, flawed film. It was an above average movie, but if anyone would bother to rent some older films, you really can't consider it to be one of the best movies ever made.

Considering this movie had a budget of $150 million, I was expecting a lot more and came out very disappointed. I've seen movies with $20,000 budgets that were much more suspenseful, thought-provoking and interesting that this one.

I'll be very hard pressed to dish out another $9.50 to see the next one when it comes out in November. Count me out. I'll give this movie a 4/10, and the first a 7.5/10.
 
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I feel compelled to reply to this post, purely because you seem to have never given the film a chance...

I will start off by saying that I was a HUGE fan of the original, and while I was disappointed by Reloaded, it was far from pathetic cash in.

I thought the fight scene between Neo and the Agents was a little hammed up, but showed good potential if they hadn't made the agents invincible. Agreed he used to be an agent, and is therefore technically indesctructible unless you fiddle with his code (as Neo did in the first film) but it would have been better had they been made more human, and not just unstoppable machines (after all, I thought that's what the Sentinels were for in the real world!)

The "Superman trick" is another example of Neo's ability to bend the rules further and further within the Matrix, enhancing his place as "The One". To me it was a complete shock to find him able to stop the Sentinels in the real world, something I was not expecting to see. This all helps add to the tension that the third film will be about, stopping the Sentinels from destroying Zion for the sixth time. The reason for this is Neo isn't just The One, he is supposed to be a higher being than "The One"'s that have gone before him. Something neither the Architect or "Mother" (someone who remains nameless until the third film, and no... It's not the Oracle) had ever expected to have to deal with. The main difference between him and the other's is the fact that he has someone more specific to love than just the human race: Trinity (I'm only really explaining what the Architect says in his missive.

Anyway, on to the car chase scene: I will agree, this could have been a LOT better, but most of it was pretty good. The fight on the truck (Agent v Morpheus for the keyholder) was well coreographed I though, although Morpheus was forced to the edge far to often, and didn't seem to have any affect on the Agent until he got his sword back. Could have been a bit more interesting. The twins were a disappointment too. Pre-release hyperbole was touting these two as the nastiest creatures in the Matrix, but like you say, were killed by a simple exploding car (not much cop for a couple of ghosts...)

I thought the keyholder was a good central character, the idea of being able to use back doors to travel through to get to other areas within the Matrix was new, and well executed I thought.

Neo was able to ressurect Trintity because it was yet another example of his ability to bend the rules, after all, once inside the Matrix, everything is beset by these rules. It's also supposedly a triumph of Love over life.

The "rave in the cave": This was a symbol of the deniznes of Zions unwillingness to just lie down and die to the Sentinels. Morpheus says something along the lines of

Tonight let us send a message to that army. Tonight let us shake this cave! Tonight let us tremble these halls of earth, steel, and stone! Let us be heard from red core to black sky. Tonight, let us make them remember. This is Zion! And we are not afraid!
To get his fellow humans in the mood for survival. Couple this with the "love scene" which in my opinion was a bit unnecessary to show in such detail (this is an action flick after all, not soft core porn) and it all adds up to one thing: We want to live on...

Anyway, I think I've said enough... be nice to hear other peoples opinions! 8)
 
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I thought it was very disappointing particularly when it finished half way through!

Nick
 

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