Catherine Shaffer--Those Pesky Middles/The Matrix

I finally saw The Matrix, Reloaded this evening. I don't have a lot of time and opportunity to see movies in the theater, so when friends and other reviewers came back with lukewarm comments on this one, I decided to pass and catch it on video. I believe Steven Piziks' evaluation was, "I wasted two and a half hours of my life watching that movie and I want them back!"

Well, guess what? I reallly liked it! The sequel was bigger, more ambitious, louder, and sexier than the original, and I give it a happy thumbs-up. Spoilers abound, so if you haven't seen it, you've been warned.

I think what may have made the difference between my experience and Steven's was that I went into it with the very lowest expectations, not unlike when I saw the original Matrix. At that time, my son was three weeks old and some friends dragged me out to get me away from the four walls of my house and the crushing exhaustion and strange mental state that is new motherhood. Come see this new movie, they said. The Matrix--what? Keanu Reeves? Uh, okay. My son slept like an angel through even the loudest gunfight and I discovered one of the true delights of life--something surprising and original and fun and really good.

This time, I'd had my disappointment already. I knew this wasn't going to be as good as I wanted it to be, so it actuallly far exceeded my expectations. What's more, I think much of the negativity was perhaps undeserved. We are talking about the dreaded middle of a trilogy. This is the movie that has to follow the strong beginning, wherein we meet our hero, he receives his mission, finds his true love, and sets off on his journey. In the second act, the characters are moving into position for the final confrontation with the enemy. It's messy and the characters' actions are necessarily unvalidated, unvindicated, and unredeemed. All that is being saved for the powerful ending.

However, The Matrix Reloaded manages to do some really neat and fun stuff within the constraints of being the middle of a trilogy. There is an unexpected expansion of the fantasy world of The Matrix and its rules. We see programs *other* than the agents moving about in it and interacting with others. Even better, I had expected The Matrix Reloaded to shamelessly rehash the same old tricks that were successful in The Matrix. Instead, the movie took a new twist almost every time. In The Matrix, Trinity downloads a helicopter piloting program and uses it to make an escape by flying a helicopter. In Reloaded, Trinity *starts* to do the same thing, but happens to be in the company of the KeyMaker, who whips the appropriate key out of his pocket. It's surprising, original, makes sense, and is completely uncontrived. I also expected a repeat of the famous gunbattle from The Matrix, but was pleasantly surprised by a car chase instead. (The freeway is suicide--har!) Sure, it looked like a lot of carchases I've seen in other movies (and, hey, was that a subtle Chips homage I picked up in the sound track?), but it was done well and with some class. In The Matrix, the crew of the Nebuchudnezzar defeats Sentinals with an EMP pulse. In Reloaded, the Sentinels try a different trick. We also get to see a new aspect of The Matrix in the back doors and hidden hallways.

Of course, there are some clinkers, and the level of dialogue isn't the best. (Shut up, Morpheus.) And, hello, was there anyone left in the universe who thought that the Oracle was human? Even my three week old son picked that one up the first time around. We had fun with it, though. During the restaurant scene, when the special dessert is delivered to the woman, and she gets up and leaves the room, I said (ignoring the obvious sexual imagery), "What, did it make her have to pee?" My husband answered, "Maybe it had a laxative in it." I responded, in a French accent, "I have sent her a veeery special dessert. It eez made weeth Ex-lax instead of zee chocolate." (Of course, to appreciate this fully, you have to realize that I can't do accents. Brent recently told me my attempt at an Irish accent sounded like Sean Connery trying to pass for German.)

And I do worry that this trilogy has George Lucas syndrome in the truest sense (not just eighties Lucas, but the whole disease). They seem to have taken something solidly scientific, and turned it mystical, much like Lucas took his mystical concept and utterly ruined it by trying to give it a scientific (sounding) basis. Is Neo actually some sort of melding of machine and man? The symbolic implications may become too much for me.

Perhaps the most important reason for my satisfaction with this movie is that I only have to wait a few weeks after the jarring "To Be Concluded" ending, which seems like they took a five hour sequel and split it down the middle, to see the rest.

Comments

[Jim]

I think the ending was probably one of my biggest gripes about Reloaded. Come on, guys - we're going to see the third movie when it comes out. Don't worry. There's no need to do a cheesy, Trek-type cliffhanger at the end. And whoever decided they needed to add that musical upswell at the end - to build the tension, don't you know - should be immediately clubbed and skinned.

[Lisa]

I'm on Steven's side of this argument. There were far too many scenes where I had the urge to check the clock on my cell phone (except that my phone was off). It's been a long time since I've been bored watching an action flick.

I thought the movie could have used some serious editing. Most of the long scenes would have benefited from being shorted by at least 30%.

They introduced a few changes to "the Matrix universe as I understood it at the end of the first movie" that bothered me, but it's been nearly a year since I seen it, so I won't go into my fuzzily-remembered arguments.

In spite of this, I will go see the third movie.

[Catherine]

I think that they should cut almost every scene where Morpheus opens his piehole. That man never shuts up! I know what he believes and I'm tired of hearing it. Yeah, this flick could have lost an hour without losing much substance. But I did see it in the comfort of my own livingroom for only $3.99 rather than paying $18 for two people on opening night. That makes a big difference. I might have felt differently if I'd done all that, then had to wait six months for the conclusion.

[Erica]

Catherine wrote:
I think that they should cut almost every scene where Morpheus opens his piehole.

Hear, hear! I was thoroughly disgusted with Morpheus by the end of the movie. He was so self-centered it was unbelievable, not to mention long-winded. Yes, the big 'Chosen One' prophecy is really *all about you, Morpheus*, and the biggest tragedy to the prophecy probably being bunk is that you feel so betrayed. Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up and take your overblown ego somewhere where it isn't blocking my view!

That said, I was also pretty bored through a lot of it. I'll see the next one because the ending left me curious, but I don't know whether I'll bother to see it in the theater.

[Steven Harper Piziks]

" . . . and I want them back!" Yep, that was me, and for all the reasons other people listed above. Like Lisa, I checked my watch during the action sequences, always an indicator of something bad.

Part of the problem was also the complete lack of tension. When Neo and the others fighting, they have no expressions on their faces, and they all wear sunglasses that hide their eyes. No expressions = no emotion = no tension. In the first movie, Neo got hurt in the fights. He got nervous, even scared, and we got scared too. But this Neo isn't scared because he knows the fight will come out fine for him. We yawn and check our watches.

--Steven

[Groovejet]

I think that to cut scenes short, or make editing changes that detract from the power of the visual are detrimental to artistic vision. What really grinds my stone is academics who dismiss big hollywood fliks becuase of predetermined perceptions and the new trend of only thinking obscure David Lynch films are brilliant. Did anyone notice that the film was so shakespearean in style, the dialogugue sounded like prose and the film contained a few actors who had acted in previous Shakespearean filmic rendetions.
The fight scenes were like Kung Foo for the funky, the party scene makes everyone who knows about what really goes on at them,smile, and the sex scene makes every one whos ever been in that type of love do backflips in their bowl of fruitloops. And thats all I have to say about that.

[Lisa]

...which just goes to show you how true the saying "Your mileage may vary" really is.

By the way, I lied earlier. I won't be going to see the third Matrix movie. (Maybe I'll rent it someday.) I don't know a single person who liked it, and I don't have a ton of spare money (or time!) to waste. I'll spend my $8.50 US on "Master and Commander," instead.

If anyone here has seen it, I am curious about your reactions.

[Erica]

Groovejet -

I'm curious. Do you think that your comments address any of us or our criticisms of the movie? I really don't see that they do. What I see you saying is that you liked it and that anyone who didn't just didn't 'get' it. Thanks, I got it just fine and still think it failed to present a solid, coherent story in an interesting way.

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