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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.
Well, I think probably on the strength of this thread, and a few wise words from others in the real world, I'm not likely to see it, at least not in a movie theatre for money. Like Attack of the Clones, I may get it out on video and watch it with a friend, so we can make cups of tea and take the piss and add the phrase "in my pants" to every line, thus making the thing endlessly more enjoyable.
Basically, it seems that there is an argument that MR will open the eyes of people in the Midwest to Pyrrhonism, and that this is a good thing and to be encouraged. Well, that's cool, but I suspect that I've probably studied more philosophy at various points in my life than the Wachowskis will be able to communicate in 2 hours and 18 minutes, so I don't think I am likely to get much out of that on a philosophical level. After all, I could reread a Phil Dick book or the Invisibles, or Inwood's Heidegger for Dummies in the same space of time and presumably get much the same messages without the numb bottom.
So, if the philosophy isn't going to be a draw, there are the action sequences, but I've got an impression from trusted sources, including ultimately Runce, that these just do not justify the movie in itself. Which is a shame, because that's where the big-screen, big-sound experience might really add something, but overlong, overworked and ultimately overreaching the current state of CGI so that the cracks show too clearly seems to be a reasonably common assessment from the wise heads.
The characters? Well, the Matrix was never really going to be sold on its characters,and MR is unlikely to do so either. With the best will in the world, the characters in the Matrix charmed primarily instead of rather than because of their dialogue, and it's interesting that for me at least the characters who said the least were the most interesting and sympathetic - Switch and Agent Smith, most obviously, who got no and one big speech, and it took Hugo W a fair amount of effort to pull that one off.
So, that. And that the Matrix really never needed a sequel. It was a complete work, which ended with the bad guy defeated, the old order on the way to destruction and Neo a deity - the flying off worked precisely because it showed he could now do whatever he wanted inside the Matrix - to insist then that limits be reestablished in the interests of drama for the sequel seems a bit silly. Also, as Flyboy observed in da pub recently, the Matrix built very well - "what is the Matrix?" was a top piece of marketing. Unfortunately, it was revealed halfway through the first film that the Matrix was a sci-fi movie premise, and not a terribly good one. You can't get back the novelty either in a synthetic perceptual universe or the mystery of the Matrix, so where does the sequel go? Into fanfic, by the sound of it, and not good fanfic.
So, yeah, think I might give this one a miss in the theatres, in answer to your question, Waxy. After all, it would be yet more money into the pockets of monolithic Hollywood, and I'm still feeling bad about X2...I'll hang around until Battle Royale 2, maybe. |
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