:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 ::

Having seen "The Matrix: Reloaded" twice now, I have to admit to having mixed feelings about it. Overall, even relative to my fairly high expectations, I did enjoy the movie but I can't help but feel that Wachowski Brothers really dropped the ball. Several things about the movie that others had complaints about, the "rave" scene, the "Neo's perspective" CGI work, the love story, the overlong expository dialogues, none of that really bothered me. In fact, a lot of that actually made perfect sense. I did feel some of the Kung Fu stuff went too long but it didn't irk me greatly either since the "Matrix" films, at its heart, are Chinese style Kung Fu movies and those types of films try to incorporate fight scenes as much as possible.

The intellectual/philosophical ramblings of various characters weren't the problems either, and it really surprised me that people would complain about this since moviegoers have been complaining for years that summer action movies have become nothing more than big, dumb, explosion-fests. Now that someone does deliver a mind stimulating movie that doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence, people are complaining that it's too hard to follow? Please.

The biggest problem with "Matrix: Reloaded" is it's almost total lack of soul. It's equivalent to an Yngwie Malmsteen guitar solo: amazingly proficient, technical virtuosity defined but delivered with a complete lack of emotion. I think the directors caught George Lucas Syndrome and tried too hard to outdo both everyone and themselves with the special effects and wire-fu. The story (yes, there was one) was good, a logical follow up to the original. For that matter the script wasn't bad either. The acting, well, again I blame the directors. Everyone in the movie was rather... cold. Really, did Neo, Trinity and Morhpeus have to be so impassive all the time? What made the characters engaging in the first film was missing: Neo's palpable state of confusion, Trinity's fear of realizing her prophecy of falling in love with The One, Morpheus' desperate search for humanities new Messiah; even Agent Smith's wisecracking, his proselytizing on the nature of the human race, and his almost human desire to accomplish his mission so he can be removed from the Matrix. Here, it seems everyone is comfortable in their roles and they aren't really interested in deviating too far from their particular box. Neo and Trinity display some passion for each other but on their own, we're left with little to care about. He's clearly indestructible, she can open mean can of whoop-a** on a group of security guards. Also, I'm one of the few (if not only) people who believe that Keanu Reeves isn't nearly as terrible an actor as most people make him out to be. While he'll never win an Oscar he'll turn in a good performance given the right director and script. In that aspect, he's let down by the directors of this film. He has little more to do than look cool and displaying his fighting prowess.

The Wachowski's really shot themselves in the foot by going overboard with the visuals. There's so much going on screen that it tends to distract from the dialogue and much of that exposition is key to understanding sustance of the overall. There are several points that the Oracle and the Architect make that, taken in context with some things said in the first film, make perfect sense. It's almost as if they didn't trust their own material to carry itself and believed that cranking the eye candy to 11 was the only way to get their point across. It's a film that had all the components in place to be considered great, a modern classic like the first film. As it is now, it's merely a good film. More than any other "middle" movie of a trilogy - compared to films like "Empire Strikes Back," "The Godfather: Part II," and maybe even "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" - it really needs the first and last film for one to be able to appreciate it.

And despite its problems, I still enjoyed it. While the end product could have been better, I had to admire the film and it's makers for their ambition in what they were attempting to convey. I'm just hoping that "Matrix: Revolutions" blows my hair back the way the first film did.

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 4:50 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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