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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Matrix Reloaded - SPOILERS

  
  

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_Boboss
11:43 / 03.06.03
Originally posted by '..blah Haus etc. ...':

'So, Flux is a wanker...'

truest thing you ever said.
 
 
waxy dan
11:56 / 03.06.03
I think that reading too much into a film like the Matrix displays the intelligence and imagination of the audience far more than that of the movie's creators.

I know that I often, for a media text that I've grown fond of, search for hidden meanings, layers, and essentially excuses to whitewash over what is often a poorly constructed work or narrative. And that (and this really is meant as a point of debate and not an attack) is what I think many of the fans of the Matrix franchise are doing.

Pointing out that Neo is creating a narrative and remodelling the world to fit his own cultural positioning and background is an observation that I thought was quite well made in reference to the first movie. For Reloaded, however, I feel such comments are apologising for what I feel is a shallow and dissappointing piece of work.

I may well be proven wrong by Revolutions, but I've my doubhts. The only 'twist' that I can think that, for me at least, might save the narrative is that it's all bullshit. Zion, Morpheus, the lot. And that all the 'real' world is just the Matrix Level 2. And we've still to find out even what the Matrix is (be it a computer world, or a drug trip, or Mr. Anderson's mental breakdown). I would be suprised if 'RAW-style' they make direct narrative references to everything we see/dream/etc. being real as it's all "brain circuitry", as this is a mainstream film. But, as you mentioned above, alluding to it would be satisfying theme for part three.


Although, obviously, I would be far more pleased to be impressed by a 'twist' I haven't thought of.

This film, however, I feel, appears to be a thinly disguised excuse for to extend the franchise ("ooh! there are vampires and werewolves in the matrix too! Really! There are many more stories to tell!! No, really! Come back, where are you going?") and tries to rewrite the background with all bamf about Exile programs and secret societies of programs, etc. in an effort to spin off a few more comics or maybe a TV series.

Which I think shows a poor ability on the part of the W. brothers. Some of the Animatrix movies I think show that the world created in the first film does allow for interesting themes to be explored, and entertaining stories to be told. But, essentially, I don't think that the W. bros are good storytellers.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:16 / 03.06.03

Originally posted by '..blah Haus etc. ...':

'So, Flux is a wanker...'

truest thing you ever said.

That's very kind, sweetheart. I'm being all good now and not saying some even truer things.

So, once again, what did you think of the film? The film is the brightly glowing series of pictures on the far wall not involving any imaginary friends from Barbelith, but a whole new set of imaginary friends with more expensive outfits.
 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
13:35 / 03.06.03
Pish and tish to your elitist jibes, kids. The only bits that didn't work were the Zion dialoouges and the frenchie bit. The rest was brilliant- gunporn is rad.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
14:01 / 03.06.03
Sometime in the early cro-magnon period of this thread, which doesn't exist by the way because we're all dreams of ourselves in RRMs head, someone asked who the annoying kid that bugs Neo is. I think he's supposed to be a character from one of the Animatrix shorts, which I haven't seen. Supposedly he meets Neo who shows him how to leave the Matrix.

As to what the Oracle in the Matrix game says to explain how Neo can defeat Sentinels, it's very disappointing if he's 'half in the real world, half in the Matrix', because that would imply that Zion is real, and that Neo is a real person whereas the most logical thing to believe is that he is just a computer program like Smith, the Oracle, the crap hair twins et al. However, if we were to take that POV then he can't leave the Matrix when he saves everyone else in the final chapter, and we don't get a nice tender scene with him standing behind Trinity gently caressing her nine months pregnant belly, which I think is required by law in films these days. I smell a possible cop-out a-brewing.

I agree with whoever said that the chateau fight scene was so much better than the 'Crisis of Infinite Smiths' fight. In the subway fight in the first film they both used up weapons, got dirty and Neo even broke Smith's glasses. The Smiths fight from the second film lacked these little touches to make it seem 'real'er. Even if Neo was destroying/killing the Smiths that would have been slightly better, but the fact that he doesn't seem concerned enough to try and destroy them makes the audience wonder why we should care.

I quite liked the motorway sequence.

Whoever it was that wanted better fight scenes? The Matrix One dude, seriously.

I would have liked it if in the first movie, you know, the first part of the trilogy (yeah, right) they might have liked to have hinted at some of the stuff we get here, like these super-characters. I don't know, a throwaway line or something. Then their appearence in this film wouldn't have seemed so completely wrong.

What happened to Tank? this film says he died, but I thought he survived the end of the first film, unless he got sliced in two with a squiddie laser in the background while Trinity and Neo snogged.

Honestly, who stole Morpheus's heart? I didn't think that much of Trinity in the first film, but I loved the way Morpheus cared for his crew. In this film he's just an arse.

It seems the game script explains the whole Persephone kissing Neo thing, or the other way around. Still, it would have been nice to explain in the movie that she either can or likes to feel the emotions between lovers to make up for her copld emotionless lief with Mr. M, rather than making out to be a dodgy porn moment.

Sorry, another dodgy porn moment.
 
 
waxy dan
14:11 / 03.06.03
gunporn is rad?

Damn straight.

But I agree with the other comments already made. I really didn't think much of the action. I loved the fight scenes, the dust and rythm, of the first Matrix. These new bits just bored me.

Except for the fight with the Seraph. Mostly because it actually involved actors.

...

Ladytron, I'd really like if Zion, Trinity, Morpheus, et al were the fakes, and Neo was real. That would be quite rocking. If he turns out to be fake, it would seem too much like a Sixth Sense meets AI moment to me. What does the Oracle say in the game (that makes sense)?
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:19 / 03.06.03
It seems the game script explains the whole Persephone kissing Neo thing, or the other way around. Still, it would have been nice to explain in the movie that she either can or likes to feel the emotions between lovers to make up for her copld emotionless lief with Mr. M, rather than making out to be a dodgy porn moment.

I don't know what the game script is, but this seemed the obvious interpretation to my mind. Hence the kiss to make her feel 'like Trinity', namely someone who is passionately loved. (Admittedly, she must have used some matrix hacking power to read anything from Keanu's expressions or body language.)

Thats also why she tells Trinity that it won't last - because she is predicting the demise of Neo and Trinity's love, just her own once exciting relationship with M. has faltered.
 
 
Simplist
15:13 / 03.06.03
Did anyone else hear a crazy rumor that one of the W Bros is going in for a sex change?

Actually, it was mere (by comparison) cross-dressing, the details having been publicized by the jilted ex of his current dom.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:52 / 03.06.03
So, squirrelly geek becomes rich and famous, discovers people other than his "childhood sweetheart" will be happy to shag him, leaves childhood sweetheart.

Shit. No. Really? Christ. Fuck.

Although the claim that he is the Chris Claremont of the Matrix is an interesting one - are there interesting (that is, genuinely interesting) elements of sex and sexuality in the film, do people think? And what is all this talk about cake going up ladymanches?
 
 
waxy dan
16:09 / 03.06.03
Haus, what did you think of the movie?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:43 / 03.06.03
I haven't seen it. You know those reviews that go "if you see one movie this year, then see...".

Well, I'm the guy who sees one movie this year. And since I have already seen X2, it would be a bit of a personal leap to see another. I'm trying to work out from people's reviews here whether or not to go see it. Since I can't do that if people are just talking about what wankers x is, it's in my interests to keep the topic on-topic.

Now, on one level I don't think that LW being or not being a cross-dresser is particularly relevant to whether the movie is any cop. However, as Chris Claremont's apparent fascination with bondage, femdom and age play seemed, accoridng to them's as know more about these things than I, to inform a lot of his X-Men work, I'm curious now as to whether, looking at the Matrix Reloaded, there might be identifiable bits of genderfucking. partly because I find genderfuck in films an interesting topic.

Take the first Matrix. Did it ever strike you that everyone's relationship to gender there, except the Oracle, who is just a wise woman stereotype, is comlicated? Trinity is there to be the love interest, but there is never any real explanation of when or why she might have fallen in love with the Neester, and she *looks* surprisingly masculine for a love interest (strong jaw, tall, muscular - she is also noticeably older than a love interest would generally be - only 3 years younger than Keanu himself). Switch is clearly wonderfully dykey and switchy, although outside the Matrix she actually seems more "soft" in many shots than Trinity. The most "real" woman, in the sense of being womanly, is the woman in the red dress, whose existence is both non (she is just a program, even more so than the general run of people in the Matrix), but also validated by being an object of (sexual) interaction.

And that's before we even get onto the ideas of dysmorphia, body representation and the association of self and physicality expressed in the concept of the Matrix itself...
 
 
CameronStewart
16:44 / 03.06.03
>>>What happened to Tank? this film says he died, but I thought he survived the end of the first film<<<

Tank is gone because of problems in the REAL Real World - the actor who portrayed him, Marcus Chong, got all uppity and demanded star-status treatment (and payment) for the sequels. He was denied, then he got all weird and started harrassing the Bros. and Joel Silver until he was finally arrested.

Seriously.
 
 
John Adlin
18:07 / 03.06.03
Quick question the "Broken Spar" question.

In the Powerplant raid before the Architect scene, Neo is having dreams (Precognition?) about Trinity death so he asks her not under any corcumstances to enter the Matrix.

The reason trinity enters the matrix is baecase the assault team on the Powerstation is destroed by a realtime attack on their hovercraft by a sentinel that throws a bomb.
In the bomb sequence we see the Broken Spar. the broken spar is the reason that the hovercraft and crew are destroyed.

Where does the Broken Spar fit in to the choice Vs predestination question of the film.

By the time that Neo Meets the Architect Trinity has allready enterd the Matrix. Thus Neo Trinity or Zion choice is what?
Is the Architeict powefull enough to engineer the situation (giving reise to the zion is another matix thory)? Or is there another factor at play?
 
 
Ethan Hawke
18:28 / 03.06.03
I don't know, Haus. One of the distressing (most hack) things about the Matrix is this idea that love (the heterosexual kind) can conquer everything, yadda, yadda, yadda, that only the love a man has for a woman can force him to make the difficult choices that will, you know, save the universe. Yeah, Carrie Ann Moss is kind of Butch, but she slots neatly into the supporting (and jealous) female role in this film. Like, she pulls a gun on Persephone (Belluci) for asking to kiss Keaneo. Which is, I suppose, a masculine thing to do - IIRC she even says something like "eat this" (her phallus, natch) - but she still seems to be playing a jealous woman role in that ridiculous scene, even if she does have a penis.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:35 / 03.06.03
Yeah, the snog at the end of the Matrix did seem to fuflil the function of a triple marriage, now that I think about it. Trinity starts off by having Neo at a complete disadvantage in the club, and goes on to be rapist/unrapist/abortifacient with a cleansing act of penetration in the back of a car, but then her role is abraded further and further into Object of Sexual Competition between Cypher and the unknowing KeaNeo, and ends up snogging him back to life, validating his Oneness by her "destined" love for him.

So, I guess she was going to have to start the next film as possession/willing helper...
 
 
LVX23
20:30 / 03.06.03
Sheesh, for a board that seems to pride itself on open-mindedness a lot of you folks are making some pretty strongly declarative statements. So many "this movie sucked", "the first hour was a total waste", "the philosophy is sophomoric", etc etc etc. Well when the fuck did you all become experts in critical analysis? How about acknowledging that it is just your opinion, not hard truth spoken by fucking Moses or Chomsky or Ebert (how's that for a trinity!).

And it's funny that pretty invariably the folks who post in this vitriolic manner always seem to hate what they're posting about. Gee, a little negative are we? Setting up the world to fall miserably short of your lofty expectations?
 
 
LVX23
20:32 / 03.06.03
(the above rant was posted after reading the first 4 or 5 pages of this thread. thing's seem to be a bit more mellew in the later pages now.)
 
 
Seth
21:39 / 03.06.03
Jesus. I never even thought to check what Ebert thought before daring to make up my own mind. Barbelith's making me lose touch with those people that really matter.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
22:40 / 03.06.03
Well when the fuck did you all become experts in critical analysis? How about acknowledging that it is just your opinion, not hard truth spoken by fucking Moses or Chomsky or Ebert (how's that for a trinity!).
Probably since I became a consumer who could express a considered opinion, occasionally without the use of the word "fuck". The difference between me and Ebert's in the hairline.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
00:44 / 04.06.03
Well when the fuck did you all become experts in critical analysis?

Well, in addition to what Rothkoid says, it should be noted that many of us who have criticized the film in this thread have strong backgrounds in art/literature/film criticism in our academic and/or professional careers.

It should be assumed that any criticisms made by any posters here on Barbelith are the opinions of the poster who wrote them - I don't see why in a thread in which the point is to give one's opinion about a film, the reader should be reminded of something so painfully obvious.

I would also like to point out that Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review. I don't quite understand why he's being invoked.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
00:50 / 04.06.03
Also: I do love the assumption from certain posters that any negative views about the Matrix Reloaded can only come from a place of snobby, joyless elitism. It's a shitty action movie sequel, folks. Most of them suck, it's not a shocker. Being let down by lousy, poorly conceived franchise movie isn't a sign of elitism - refusing to watch them out of some kind of principal might be.

Speaking for myself, I genuinely wanted the Matrix Reloaded to be good. I certainly wasn't going in with high expections or any strong prejudices against the film - it bored/alienated/annoyed me all on its own.
 
 
rakehell
01:37 / 04.06.03
If you're stil wondering if you should see the film, Haus, maybe this review will tip you over. Don't know the original source.

[mod edit: snipped because the excerpt's hogging bandwidth. You can read the review here - Google is your friend.]
 
 
Hieronymus
02:05 / 04.06.03
Hahahaha! That's the same daffy bastard that did the review for X2. From Ain't-It-Cool-News I believe.
 
 
waxy dan
07:42 / 04.06.03
So do you reckon you're going to see it?

I have to know impression this thread gives to someone who hasn't seen it


Though I'm surprised at much talk of complicated, or even considered, gender roles in the first film. They always struck me as being very stereotyped. Oracle = wise older lady, Trinity = ass-kicking modern ninja girlfriend, Switch = only really there to look cool, and she gets bumped off with barely a line of dialogue to her name so she don't count for that much.
 
 
diz
07:56 / 04.06.03
Tank is gone because of problems in the REAL Real World - the actor who portrayed him, Marcus Chong, got all uppity and demanded star-status treatment (and payment) for the sequels. He was denied, then he got all weird and started harrassing the Bros. and Joel Silver until he was finally arrested.

Seriously.

i've heard weird rumors that he was stealing massive amounts of food from the caterers on the set of the first one. take that with as many grains of salt as you wish.
 
 
waxy dan
09:12 / 04.06.03
Did someone mention something about the crap sex scene earlier up?

Just got a text off a mate of mine saying she liked it/thought it gave a good understanding of what sex is about. And I'd agree. I actually quite liked it.. well, no, I didn't think the scene was produced very well (the rave was a tad cheesy "damn you machines! we're still humans! see how we party!"). But I thought it gave a good representation of the way in which sex between two people can be used as a medium to communicate the need/desire/comfort/care/fear/intimacy that they feel.
 
 
The Natural Way
11:41 / 04.06.03
Now falling completely into "this really isn't very good, is it?" camp. After a while, all the special effects begin to fade from memory and then I'm left with that nasty, empty feeling. I hate that feeling.
 
 
videodrome
13:04 / 04.06.03
Well when the fuck did you all become experts in critical analysis?

Where do you get off not using your critical faculties?

Those who are unable to deal with opinions stated with conviction should just fuck off to the Ain't It Cool News boards, where many other people who base their identities in fandom are ready to welcome you into a parade of yes-men. Does it hurt your feelings that I think the flm is pathetic shite? Do you actually feel wounded when I agree with Flux that anyone whose mind is 'opened' by this hasn't spent too much time investigating the contents of their own head?

Christ. You make me channel Dave Sim - I don't care what you feel, I want to know what you think.
 
 
waxy dan
13:35 / 04.06.03
To echo Haus' earlier sentiments, would it be possible to go back to having chats about the movie?

Although maybe a thread on people being pretentious/arrogant against people displaying critical thought would be interesting in its own right?
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:50 / 04.06.03

Just got a text off a mate of mine saying she liked it/thought it gave a good understanding of what sex is about. And I'd agree

Sex is about mind-numbing tedium?
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
14:10 / 04.06.03
bye.
 
 
waxy dan
14:29 / 04.06.03
Sex is about mind-numbing tedium?
Harsh! Like I said, I didn't think it was well produced. But I appreciate the theme I think they were getting at.
 
 
Simplist
15:20 / 04.06.03
I do love the assumption from certain posters that any negative views about the Matrix Reloaded can only come from a place of snobby, joyless elitism. It's a shitty action movie sequel, folks. Most of them suck, it's not a shocker.

Well I think this is just the point: it was indeed an action movie sequel, yet various posters are criticizing it as if they went in expecting Plato's Symposium. ???
 
 
YNH
15:27 / 04.06.03
Flux, be nice. Compare apples to apples. This scene was better than, say, the one in Days of Thunder, wasn't it?

Why is Plato's Symposium a poor standard? Alternatively, why should an action sequel be subjected to weak criticism?
 
 
videodrome
15:52 / 04.06.03
I'll go ahead and be assumptive when I say that most of us who have criticized the film went in expecting nothing more than what was promised. I haven't the time to dig up quotes, but Reloaded was said to have things that no one had seen on screen before, and there was the idea that the film might take the time to follow through on the premises left untapped in the first outing. Several people here evidently think the film fails on all counts.

And if a film has pretentions to relevance in any sort of philosophical discourse - which The Matrix series certainly does - than it must be ready to be roundly taken to task when it fails.

No one here has criticized the film with a statement along the lines of 'gosh, I expected a Socratic Revival and all I got was this shitty chop-socky flick!' That's an inference on the part of others, who I suspect have made a leap of transference, thinking that our criticism of the film implies judgements against it's admirers.

I'll head the argument off at the pass by saying that Flux's statements, which I support, are not judgement, merely observation. If you've been unplugged by the films, wonderful. But that says more about the unplugee's relative inexperience with philosophy and introspection than the competence of the film(s).

Stop trying to justify an appreciation of the film by lowering expectations with 'it's only an action sequel'. Just go ahead and appreciate it, on your own terms. It's OK. We really don't mind.
 
  

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