Anyone seeing The Matrix reloaded tonight?

Not for nothing but....my 14 year old Son understands both the Matrix flicks perfectly...I showed him this thread and he found it quite humorous...If needed he'll explain the premise...

 

Here's the Yesguy's review of the Matrix Reloaded:

First of all, let me mention that I don't generally like anything whose fan base is made up of 35 year old virgins and if a movie has more than three explosions I feel as if I have the right (and duty) to throw popcorn or cola soaked cookie dough bites towards the screen and to make a snide comment every few seconds. My girlfriend dragged me kicking and screaming to see this movie with the understanding that she was going to get an earful of hateful and sometimes rude comments.

There is enough fast paced action to intrigue even the most severely ADD inflicted 3 year old with a belly full of Pixie Sticks. Unfortunately, the animation in those action sequences were surprisingly close to the screen shots of the Matrix video game seen in the trailer before the movie. These highly digital fights rival Steamboat Willie in realism.

Speaking of special effects, they used that cliched flying kick, freeze framed, 180 degree spinning circular shot more times than I fell asleep. It has all the originality of a drum machine in Rap music. Let's move on people.

Let me also warn you that we get a shot or three of Keanu's shimmering buttocks in the style of Mel Gibson and the recently exposed George Clooney. This was the only time my girlfriend stopped making snide comments for more than 30 seconds.

Speaking of Keanu, how does he continue to trick the movie going public into thinking he can act? This is a guy you buy a hamburger from, not someone you pay millions to "interpret" lines of dialog. At best he's repulsive. At worst he's not quite as effective as sandbags in your back seat for winter traction. He always seems out of place when delivering dialog, a major detriment to any actor in my opinion, with phrases like "look out!" and "let's go!" I bet every line in the script ended in an exclamation point.

As for the dialog, it's full of bloated, over exclamatory statements and pseudo psychological nonsense... you know, mumbo jumbo, all delivered with a zeal that makes Ron Palillo's Horshack look dignified and reserved. "You must take time to have time" " There's an unopeneable door and through that door is a lock that can not be unlocked and a key that doesn't exist" Bleck!!

Can you imagine the special edition of this movie on DVD? There'd be more information on the making of the movie than actually in the movie. Plus, there'd be that all too unnecessary bonus 3rd disc containing a three hour documentary on the catering crew and the embarrassed screen writer and his box of crayons.

To sum things up, this movie is bloated production with a lousy script that relies on special effects and a sinful advertising budget. It has a tedious rave sequence that lasts approximately 3 hours and 12 minutes, one car chase (also clocking in at 3 hours and 12 minutes), both of Keanu's exposed buttock, two coherent sentences and cartoonish animated fight scenes.

I'm sitting here thinking of things I would've rather done with the 6 and a half hours it took me to sit through this movie. Here's a partial list: Complete the puzzle on the back of the King Vitamin cereal box, skin a cat, have a root canal, watch Holocaust footage, have a blowout in Nowhereville, Utah and vote republican.

 

Soooo, did ya like it or not, Jamie?

 

I saw a better show in the men's room after the movie was over. I won't go into details now. It's all just a future therapy bill.

Hey, you just hit 2000 posts!

 

Nice review Jamie - it has started my day off with a laugh before I go to see the medicine man

My dentist once asked me if he could do root canal work without the anaesthetic because I quote "I can better judge where the nerve endings are by watching your reaction" - over your dead body bud

Congratulations Robert

All the best - Andrew

 

I'd quickly choose a new dentist! and fast! Ouch! What a sadist...Excuse me Doc,...Can I stick this needle up your....

 

And you guys thought my review was a little rough! It was a ringing endorsement(and there are things to like, make no mistake, there's just so much sensory overload)compared to Jamie's. Guess he didn't like it....

That he has, and I'm surprised one of you enterprising lads didn't start the obligatory thread. Must be why I'm here....

ED

 

Any of you who are Strczynski fans should be checking out the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN comic, as it has been written by JMS for about two years. It is incredible.

 

I only can say: "Unfortunatly, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself"

 

Though we never referred to this directly, I know I was thinking of this comic and I'd bet dollars to donuts Ed was too, when we mentioned Strczynski. Great stuff.

 

THAT BABE WHO PLAYS MEROVINGIAN'S WIFE

And Merovingian's wife...Oh MAN! Could she wear that dress any tighter?What a jaw dropper.

Jim W.

 

Would someone please provide with a synopsis of what the Matrix inventor was trying to explain to Kenneau (sp?) Reaves near the end of the movie? I accompanied a group of Japanese exchange students to see the flick yesterday and I have some major explaining to do. Thanks.

Jim W.

 

THERE MAY BE SOME SPOILERS AHEAD....


































I don't know if I can sum it all up--I'm still thinking it through, and I'd really need to see it another time to do it right--but here's roughly what I heard.

The Matrix was designed to include the illusion of freedom, the illusion of choice. That illusion requires a rather complex narrative in order to be satisfying. You can't just write the code so that everyone's thinking "this is great, I am happy and free." After several iterations (or was it only one?), the Architect discovered that the human illusion of freedom isn't completely satisfying unless some small band of humans also has the illusion of being able to penetrate the illusion of the Matrix. That is, the illusion of freedom must include a subroutine (in computerspeak) in which a small band of humans believe they have acquired hidden knowledge (and in a manner of speaking, they do in fact acquire that knowledge) and that they will one day meet a Messiah who will save the world and restore human freedom. That subroutine produces Neos on a regular basis--I think the Architect said that this Neo was the sixth, or perhaps there had been six before him. At any rate, this Messiah narrative/subroutine always ends up with the latest Neo being presented a "choice" between two doors. One door eliminates the human race. The other perpetuates the Matrix as designed by essentially starting over from the beginning, with a small core of folk living in Zion and the seeds of the new Messiah/Neo cult's being sown.

So to save humanity, Neo has to accept his destiny within the Messiah subroutine/narrative, which means of course that he isn't really saving humanity; he's merely executing the next step in the grand program. And if he chooses to eliminate the human race, that of course is merely another fork in the program. Sort of a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose game on the part of the Architect, except that it's particularly wicked because it appears to give Neo a choice, and one of those choices (eliminate humanity) actually looks like the more principled, "revolutionary" stance. Trouble is, if you revolt against the Architect you commit suicide.

All those other Neos on the video screens have been presented with this identical moment of choice. They all respond with a mixture of rage and defiance and disbelief. This Neo seems to feel there's hope, that there's a third alternative. We'll see. It all depends on where Architect and Oracle stand in relation to each other.

And that's a tough nut to crack. The movie very deliberately explores the idea of meaning and purpose in human existence, and the early results are grim. If there IS meaning and purpose in life, then there MUST be causality (otherwise everything's random), and if there's causality, then God (the Architect) and Death (Maravingian, whose wife is Persephone, the wife of Hades) win. There's order and purpose and meaning, but it does not reside in human beings and indeed is incompatible with the idea of human freedom. The Oracle seems to hold out another alternative, in which human freedom and destiny are somehow intertwined, with understanding in the mix somewhere. This part's pretty fuzzy so far. (To be fair, it's pretty fuzzy whenever anyone tries to reconcile meaning and freedom.) After all, the Oracle herself is a piece of sentient code within the Matrix. Does she stand for a kind of chaos a la chaos theory? Does she stand for intuitive reasoning? Love? Hard to say. Certainly love is a key here (pun intended). The scene with Persephone and Neo testifies to that, as does the entire relationship between Neo and Trinity (though I didn't find that "human be-in" sequence very convincing--kinda silly, actually). Smith, on the other hand, just wants more of himself. He's the anti-Neo, and it's interesting to see that he's apparently "broken away" from the system too. Perhaps the Architect designed the Matrix so that sentient code would have its own illusions?

Anyway, that's what I've come up with so far. The philosophical/mythical stuff in the movie is not mumbo-jumbo IMO, but the filmmakers are swimming in very deep waters and it's easy to drown there (and to provide vast amusement to the people watching from the shore while you go down!). So far, however, I'm pulling for them. I thought the movie had a lot of very compelling moments.

 

Gobbledygook. Jabberworky. Plain and utter BS. It doesn't have to make sense, so it doesn't. Kind of like the time travel conundrum of the TERMINATOR films. Makes no sense at all and is impossible, but why let logic get in the way of a good popcorn movie?

ED

 

Is that your final answer, Ed?

 

I have read our reviews... mixed comments about RELOADED. They say... too many quotes to other movies like SUPERMAN or GHOSTBUSTER.

Well, I will see...

 

If memory serves, Warners did offer "Superman" to the Wachowskis a couple of years back but they turned it down. Brett Ratner was attached up until a few months ago, but he dropped out too (yeah, thank god!). I haven't been following too closely, but I believe Warners is still going with the J.J. Abrams screenplay (if they can get the $200 million budget down just a tad ).

Whatever one may think of The Matrix films, I think the Wachowskis do a great job of visualizing superhero action. If you look at Neo as a superhero (superman or otherwise), some of it starts to make sense. The Wachowskis do have a background in comics after all and know their stuff.

Did anyone else think the albino twins had powers similar to the Avengers' Vision?

And Monica Bellucci does have the power to look absolutely gorgeous.

Ray

 

I have seen Reloaded tonight... I must say I was very disappointed!!!

The special effects were great... but some of the fightning scenes were too long... and the most important thing: I missed the elegance from the first part!

Reloaded affects me like bigger is better, but that's not true... the highway stunt is terrific, but he loses the affect, because it's too long!

Well... I thought they could top the first part as I have seen the trailers, but...

 

Saw it last night in Farmingdale with a very funny College crowd.

This is a movie that will be better on DVD because you'll be able to FF thru the very boring long winded parts and get right to the action.

The 100 Smiths fighting scene resembled a Xbox Video Game and hence lost all meaning to me (it was just amusing).

The Highway Chase Scene was darn good and will be DEMO material for my HT (wait til my SVS subwoofer gets a hold of that one!)

Interesting that Neo meets God (The Architect) and that God blows away all his presumptions....no one really has choice or freedom of will...it may all be an illusion (pretty neat actually).

I agree with most critics that this movie deserves **1/2 Stars out of 4.

*can you imagine that Humans would have to consider Zion..Home Sweet Home...if the Matrix was true. They all walk around that dump like its the shiznit...man, it looked like the bottom of the Oil Freighter in WaterWorld *

 

I saw this tonight, and while the first MATRIX movie reminded me of watching my nephew play a video game, the sequel was exactly like watching my nephew play a video game.

I thought the action sequences went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on to the point of tedium, and the trumped-up philosophical conundrums were worthy of a 2:00 a.m. alcohol-and-pot-soaked freshman study session after all the sensible students have gone to bed.

And to top it off, the worst music over the end-credits I've ever heard! I'm usually determined to sit through the credits in some sort of show of respect for all the faceless technicians, but whatever angry rap-metal that was -- presumably inserted into the soundtrack for the obligatory MTV cross-promotional video -- it got me out of the theatre immediately. Couldn't the producers have displayed an iota of humor and played "Tiny Bubbles" or "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" over the end credits? Then I wouldn't have to worry that the creators take this stuff any more seriously than I do: there's nothing more enervating than a hyperactive action film that thinks it's art.

 

I thought it was great, even though all the criticism, expecially the point about incomprehensible gobbledegook (particularly from Morpheus and the Architect), is true. Some say, as well as "The Matrix", you have to have seen all the extra footage in the "Enter The Matrix" game and the nine Animatrix shorts to full understand it...

However, think "ExistenZ" or "The Thirteenth Floor", and how Neo can stop the Sentinels in the "real" world with the same skills he uses to stop the bullets in the virtual world...

 

Ron's complaint is typical of many I've heard:

to which I can only say, what is a "sensible" student? (do they tend to major in certain subjects, or have certain study skills, or what?) and "which conundrums do you mean and how were they 'trumped up,' exactly?"

For me, the first movie's heart was in its action sequences and the philosophical stuff was half-hearted, while the second movie reversed that relationship almost exactly. The action stuff was intermittently fun but not very involving, while the layers of pastiche, movie-quoting (besides the obvious bits from Metropolis, did it seem to anyone else that Steve McQueen was at the table where the Chocolate Victim was sitting? I swear I saw David Lynch there too), and genuinely interesting philosophical speculation (even if the filmmakers were a bit tongue-in-cheek there, too) were thoughtful and engaging, at least for this viewer.

By the way, though the Smith-Clone-Fight wasn't very interesting as an action piece, it IS interesting that Smith wants more of him, while Neo reaches into Trinity's body to bring her back. Just a thought, trumped-up though it may be.

 

Matrix Reloaded IMAX version

Last night my friend Gord and I saw Matrix Reloaded for the second time, in one of the two IMAX theatres in Calgary. I had the same reaction last night that I did when I saw Star Wars Episode II, Attack Of The Clones, in the IMAX theatre last summer. Matrix Reloaded played better. I enjoyed the film more than when I saw it the first time. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but the films played faster, tighter. I know Star Wars was edited down to 2 hours, which helped quite a bit, IMHO, but I'm not sure that The Matrix was edited. The usher who introduced the film said it was 2 hours and 9 minutes. IMDB lists The Matrix Reloaded as being 138 minutes, so maybe there was a bit trimmed off the regular theatrical release.

I'm now looking forward to the third installment, Matrix Revolutions, as this film will be getting simultaneous IMAX and regular theatre release. I will definitely be in line for the IMAX version.

If the IMAX version of Matrix Reloaded is in you town, you saw the regular version and liked it, check out the IMAX version. For me it was worth seeing again.

Here is a listing of all the IMAX theatres in the U.S. and Canada currently showing the movie.

Carrie-Anne Moss

 

I was VERY disappointed! A boring movie, filled with martial arts fights and Mr. Smiths and beautiful people at a giant rave party. What's the point? Where's the story? The first movie was excellent at least. But this one? I won't go to see the last one, that's for sure.

 

I also was disappointed, but I must see "Revolution"... I'm too curious!