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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Matrix Reloaded - SPOILERS

  
  

Page: 1(2)34567... 11

 
 
cusm
17:06 / 16.05.03
For fuck's sake! They're Chinese ghosts! Complete with the funky hair! Sheese. People and their fucking persecution complexes. [whine]Its discriminating against albinos as inhuman freaks[/whine] God save me.
 
 
PatrickMM
17:34 / 16.05.03
Apparently, going against the majority of people, I loved the movie. First off, the action sequences were simply incredible. I've heard other people say they dragged on, but I didn't think anything needed to be cut from any of them. The Agent Smiths sequence was just fun, it was designed to be slightly unreal, and I think it completely succeeded in being highly entertaining.

The sword sequence was beautifully and was graceful and beautiful. Then, the highway sequence was sick, with many really great moments. Morpheus cutting the truck with his sword, then blowing it up with his gun was beautiful, and the explosion bullet time sequence was awe-inspiring.

Neo's flight power was spectacular visually. The sequence where he was up in the clouds was beautiful, and his flight at the end as he was tearing up cars in his path was also great.

And probably my favorite of all the effects sequences was the opening/closing Trinity battle. The shot where she jumped out of the building, turned around in the air and started to fire was beautiful, and the agents falling and firing after her air was excellent also.

My main problem with the movie was the pacing. The first part of the film dragged because there was too much focus on characters we had no connection to. Link didn't work in the beginning, and he didn't work later in the film when he existed just to say cheesy lines. And the annoying kid following Neo around had absolutely no point in this movie. A lot of the exposition on Zion seemed unneccessary, and I would have rather seen some focus on the characters. Rather than adding in so many new people, I would have liked to see more development on Morpheus, Neo and Trinity.

There was defenitely a lot of Invisibles in the movie. The idea of programs moving the characters along to get them to the point where they need to be for events to occur reminded me a lot of John a Dreams, or the Harlequinade. And the man in the white suit at the end essentially was Satan. This movie essentially is taking all the ideas that have been in fringe sci-fi (Invisibles, PKD, etc.) and putting them in a form that's palatable for mass consumption. More than The Invisibles, this really is Anarchy for the Masses.

More on Invis, this movie reminded me a lot of Volume II. The characters are getting cooler, and more powerful, but they're also losing touch with the human side of what they're doing. Trinity is killing security guards, with no concern about their humanity. Even if they're in the matrix, they still have feelings, and feelings are as human in the matrix as out. And the freeway sequence was essentially a fifteen minute murder of innocent civilians for a cause. I'm hoping that they'll address what they are doing in the next movie, because right now, it felt a bit wrong to not look at things from the other perspective.

I'm a huge fan of his work, but if he's so concerned about everything that he wrote about in the three volumes and totally believes it, he should be fucking doing backflips that the Matrix is doing what its doing, (exposing people to this shit, and 'helping the baby larvae universe be born' and all that) and not be fucking suing them. Fucking ego.

If you read more in Anarchy for the Masses, he goes on to say how once we got over the initial annoyance about being copied, he said how he was actually happy because it did bring the ideas to a lot of new people, which I agree with him about.

Overall, very strong film, with a lot of extremely interesting ideas. It's going to be interesting to see how this ends.
 
 
diz
17:37 / 16.05.03
oh, my. i feel horrible for endorsing negative stereotypes of the albino community =P

anyway, i forgot to mention that i also loathed the Neo-Trinity resurrection scene beyond all words.
 
 
Who's your Tzaddi?
20:56 / 16.05.03
Really - Shouldn't Keanu Reeves shun the REEVES curse and play "Superman"?
 
 
vajramukti
22:37 / 16.05.03


just saw it today.

I have to say i am very impressed with it. which is not to say it doesn't have it's flaws, ( the action scenes seem overlong, the scene transitions are jarring, and the climax is unneccisarily convoluted )but the sheer audacity of the WB and the fact that they give me a lot of credit for having some intellect, makes me willing to give them a lot of credit in return.

I cannot help thinking of this movie as a massive tank bulldozed right into the heart of mainstream entertainment, and even so, it never could have gotten there if not for the first films concessions to genre filmaking. if nothing else, this is a major headbomb for middle america. surely some if not most will dismiss the ideas ( which are not at all mindblowing for most of us here, but certainly are for a great many )in favor of the glorious fight scenes, but it's a major coup for intelligent, passionate filmaking. so hats off for that.

some ideas that occur to me now:

the councilor in the mechanics level strongly implies that the humans and machines need each other. i tend to agree. i think there is a lot more to the existance of the matrix than simple power supply. let us remember, that the power pod theory could well just be what the humans think, and we have seen how misinformed they really are.

the merovingian argues that there is no choice, only causality, while the architecht explains to neo that choice is the fundamental flaw in the matrix. so what give gives? is there or is there not?

my feeling here is that the 'two doors' are just another system of control, as it were. how are we to know that the 5 previous 'ones' did not all make the same choice? which leads to another thought, but later for that....

the implication here is that the matrix always fails catastrophicly if the human minds are not permitted to have choice. yet, choice is the source of the eventual catastophic failure that the architecht holds over neo. it is because of the anomaly that neo exists, and the matrix must fail no matter what. maybe it is the very act of hope against hope that permits the matrix to continue to exist, despite what neo is told.
maybe every 'one' made the same choice, and neo is still a pawn.

the scene of all the screens with reeves face, screaming swearing and losing all composure was mildy disturbing by the way...

which brings me back the merovingian. persephone says that he was once a lot like neo, and that she once experienced a love like his and trinity's. there is definitely a strong hint there that either the merovingian is an earlier 'one' or that at the very least, he represents what could become of neo. no choice, no hope, only casuality. lost in hell.

if the merovingian was once like neo, maybe he made the same choice neo did, to hope against hope, only to find no choice at all. only another system. just a game.


more later.... it's worth the ticket just to have such interesting questions, so phooey to all the sour grapes out there.
 
 
Mr Tricks
23:19 / 16.05.03
wow... I hadn't considered a merovingian/Neo connection...

I figured all the images of Neo's various "reactions" where Cut & Pasted from the previous 5 Matrixs...

I'm starting to suspect that the world outside of the matrix is still actually another "level" of the MATRIX....

As for the "Choice", there was (for me) one clue, in that the Arcitect was impressed with the spead with-which NEO jumped to the CUT THE BULLSHIT upon their initial meeting. I took it that Noe's choise was an exception but the Arcitect was still trying to goad him into choosing the other door... which read as opting for Martyrdom vs. Pioneering his own "path."

Still it's totally up in the air. And I'm also imagining an interesting parallel between the Arcitect & the Pro-council. Just an interesting parallel in the introduction of 2 "white" father figures...
 
 
Thjatsi
05:58 / 17.05.03
who really believed for a second that Neo wouldn't end up being revealed as The One at the end of the Matrix?

Actually, I thought it was going to turn out to be Morpheus right up until the bullet dodging scene.
 
 
Tamayyurt
06:00 / 17.05.03
Remembrax- What's TTT? Are you sure you mean me?
 
 
Catjerome
06:07 / 17.05.03
Just got back from seeing it ... had to sit in one of the up-close rows, which sucked, because I couldn't follow the fight scenes as well, so when those came on, I ended up glossing out a bit and generating critique in my head. Damn!

I definitely liked the visuals, especially the costuming. I love how in the Matrix, it's Black and White. Black suits, black vinyl, white suits, white rubber/latex/whatever that was on Persephone. Morpheus wearing ... um, those sleeve-cuff things! Neo's coat! Woo! I'm a big fan of what they did with the promotional posters - it's all about fashion. Crop the heads, we care only about the clothes. Saving humanity and looking pretty fucking stylin', yeah.

The rest of the film, though ...

When the film finished, I felt fairly ... underwhelmed. It was like a string of beads that didn't come together well into a solid story - exposition clump, fight scene, exposition clump, fight scene, repeat. People talked in speeches. A few over-the-top characters (the Merovingian, the kid that Neo saved) that grated a bit.

I'm a big character person when it comes to stories - I like individual personalities and feeling like characters are friends that I can describe rather than plug-in task machines. The characters here were underdeveloped, which irritates me. They don't seem to have much _personality_, except for maybe Link the operator (the audience with me liked his outbursts). Morpheus is pretty well-developed, but what is there to Trinity or Neo besides fighting the good fight? What draws them to each other? (heh, besides Neo getting the girl in vinyl and Trinity getting to bed humanity's savior Is there anything to Lock besides a permanent scowl?

Also, I could just be letting the knee-jerk pc side of me howl out, but ... everyone was straight, there were no interacial relationships, and all of the women seemed to be defined by their relationships to men? I really wish that there were stronger roles for women in this series. Niobi is a captain, but she's emphasized more as a corner in a love triangle, and even Trinity, as strong as she is, comes off as just "the love interest" (who's loved "so damn much" ... bah, what a cheese line). All of the other women (except maybe the council leader, for her tiny part) seemed to be wives or lovers, not characters on their own. Humanity is saved by the noble white guy. Or am I making teapot-tempests here?

I did like the conversation with the Architect and the suggestion that maybe the Oracle can't be trusted. Those were thought-provokers. Also Neo's groupies in Zion - that reminded me of how folks worshiped Paul Atreides in the *Dune* series.

Did anyone else expect something bad to happen when Neo kissed Persephone immediately after she applied her lipstick?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
14:44 / 17.05.03
Poor Larry Fishburne. Did anyone else get nostalgic for Cowboy Curtis?

I thought the entire freeway scene was most excellent, but they really should've hired a writer for the rest of it. The "philosophy" was pretty sophomoric, if you ask me.

When they first said his name, I thought the Merovingian was the Meryll-Lynchian, which would've been much funnier. Was there a point to the Merovinigan business, except for the oft-said bon mot that cursing in French is like wiping your ass with silk? Are the super-programs actually superusers, do you think? Is the Matrix actually the overblown film version of an early-90s cyberpunk novel?

How wack is Mr. Smith? If Neo is a superhero who controls reality within the Matrix, why doesn't he just set Mr. Smith on fire, sink him to his waist in concrete, etc? The kung fu stuff works for Morpheus, who has limits, but if Neo's a messiah who can fly and bounce bullets off his big brain, the kung fu, no matter how fast and mighty, seems a little lame.

Overall, Pi was much better, and I didn't even like Pi that much.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
15:15 / 17.05.03
Sax: why the bother inventing The Matrix at all?

The Zion world is part of the Matrix, too. The people in the Matrix are solving an equation, not feeding robots. It's just that Douglas Adams and Piers Anthony covered this already.
 
 
Burning Man
15:39 / 17.05.03
Since I saw Reloaded on Wed, I've been following the various message boards to see what the community of my peers thought of this movie, and let me tell you, I am amazed at the variety of responses. Many of them appear to be thought out, but most seem to be a knee-jerk reaction to what they thought the movie should have been

Personally I thought it was great, Finnegeans Wake great. It appears to me that each scene, name, number, character and plot the movie was conceived and excecuted on multiple levels. Each idea a chain leading to deeper levels of understanding, linked to concepts of Math, Gnosticism, Buddhism, Western Philosophy which is anything but "pseudo". An asside: This infuriates me that the dialogue in this movie is called "pseudo-philosophical", it is anything but false, and certainly not made up, but is instead based on a plethoria of philosophies some thousands of years old. In my opinion, this tag is an attempt to marginalize the movie in order to justify their dislike of it. Personally, the concepts expounded on in the movie flew past me to goddamn fast to understand and it will take several viewings just to get all of what they said.

It is my opinion that the people who have been trashing the movie so vehemently just don't get it. I apologize to those who do get it and still didn't like it...I wasn't talking about YOU, you are a minority. Just because I didn't apprehend everything all at once, I believe it is impossible for anyone to do the same.

Let's face it, this is a very difficult movie to pull off and I think nearly all of us would be unable to construct a screenplay of such scope. The naysayers who pick the movie apart and complain that the WB aren't complying with the rules they set for the universe in Matrix 1, must have missed something. These guys are anal to the core, there is no way they would let anything slide-I have that much faith in them (though I don't know them) to believe this is so. Those who wonder why Neo is not playing God and performing all sorts of supermiracles but relying on fighting and such with weapons etc...Agent Smith mentions this when he says something like, "Ahh Neo, still thinking with every muscle except the one that counts the most." I loved it, the WB justified everything with that one line. Apparently Neo is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Finally, I think its great that the WB are presenting their story in muli-media. I believe I am a bitter cynic and even I don't think its just for marketing and money. I think they genuinely want to break through into other mediums of communication. It's a multifacited story, why limit yourself when you are dealing with levels of reality.

Thanks for reading...Burning Man out.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
16:35 / 17.05.03
Let's face it, this is a very difficult movie to pull off and I think nearly all of us would be unable to construct a screenplay of such scope
Yeah, 'cos PVC gunporn with the occasional "Life, eh?" and tribal rave moment is gonna be edging out My Dinner With Andre for the Esoterica Medal sometime soon.

Come on.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
17:11 / 17.05.03
Burning Man,

Re: Multimedias, I'm not all that far into Enter The Matrix and there's already been a neat but fleeting sequence in which this fucked up mess of a guy (who, had he not died several years ago, would have been a perfect and disturbing fit for Twin Peaks' Bob, Frank Silva) who taunts Niobe with "Seventy-Two hours.....that's how long Zion lasted the last time," and claiming he's "an interested observer." This idea that there are programs in The Matrix that have smuggled themselves through all the iterations of the Matrix is becoming more interesting the further it's explored. The game, as a video game, is kind of weak, but i've just jacked up all the cheats and am playing through it. The sensation is pretty close to watching a longer and slightly more interactive version of a movie residing on the outskirts of Reloaded as it goes along, and in that respect it's very enjoyable. The cheat aspect is nice because it's built as if you're actually hacking in. It's the only game I've played where I don't feel like I'm actually cheating. It's just another skill.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
17:45 / 17.05.03
Well, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie on its merits (the freeway scene, basically, and the nifty outfits), I just didn't think it was All That and A Bag of Chips. Burning Man, I suppose I could be missing out because I'm not that interested in the multi-media aspect -- when I see a movie, I expect the movie itself to provide sufficient context. I take your point that Neo may be a little slow, but why should we be interested in him? I guess it's not that big a deal. I just think the whole messianic thing is kind of boring.

I don't know if the word "pseudo" is used elsewhere in the thread, but I think the objections raised here regarding the movie's "philosophical" aspects are more in the order of, "yeah, we knew that. Are we supposed to be impressed?" rather than, "that's not real philosophy." I don't think it actually was that difficult to achieve this "scope." Many other writers have done it, were more subtle about, and threw some sympathetic characters in as well.

PVC gunporn with the occasional "Life, eh?" and tribal rave moment

There was definitely some kind of attempted hypnosis in all that monotonous sex-and-death jive. Maybe they should've screened the end of Apocalyps Now or something before cutting that scene, though. These WB got no rhythm.
 
 
Burning Man
19:34 / 17.05.03
PVC gunporn with the occasional "Life, eh?" and tribal rave moment

I think that's the surface stuff, and the bang, bang is a way to bring asses into the seats. I think the meat of the matter is really a conversation about self and perceptions, the nature of reality and Godhood. We all know the first law of screenswriting is (or should be) "Show, don't tell".

I don't claim to be a scholar, but certain concepts are embedded into the film, the names are symbolic, Neo as the New Man, Morpheus, the God of Sleep etc. Check out these links:

http://www.onwardoverland.com/matrix/philosophy.html
http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/0509/p16s01-almo.htm

Even if a fraction of these ideas had been thought out by the WBs, then I think the film has multiple layers of richness that just astound me.

As for the multi-media aspect. I can see Qalyns point that the movie should be self contained. I agree there, but it makes me wonder. Lord of the Rings is 3 large books, yet much had to be cut and rearranged for the movie to work. The works of Tolkein have a life of their own, Middle Earth exists in our collective conscious. Perhaps due to the fact that there is no written history of the Matrix, that the stories of the Matrix have to be told in alternated media of Comics, Anime and Video Game in order to bring it to life in the retlatively short time it has existed. Sorry that the game is lukewarm.

I think the WB, have cobbled together a patchwork of universal ideas, fused them and took ownership of them. It's true that there are no new ideas, but I think the synthesis works.

I look forward the day someone publishes "The Skeleton Key" to the Matrix. I'm sure I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Yeah, I will also agree that the characters are acted pretty wooden, 2D and have this habit of shooting the people they are trying to save, but I still think this movie is great. It may not be the end all, be all-I'm not sure if it is science fiction, but it's great mythfic and probably sets a new standard for mind fucking movie madness.

Burning Mannnnnnnn, out
 
 
CameronStewart
23:16 / 17.05.03
The New Yorker sums it all up nicely for me:

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?030519crat_atlarge

"It feels not so much like “Matrix II” as like “Matrix XIV”—a franchise film made after a decade of increasing grosses and thinning material...For anyone who was transfixed by the first movie, watching the new one is a little like being unplugged from the Matrix: What was I experiencing all that time? Could it have been . . . all a dream?"

Haven't seen a film like this since Star Wars Episode 1. A film that tries to enrich and deepen its cosmology but just ends up being rubbish and fucked.

First half? Total bullshit. Everything in Zion is terrible beyond belief. I was bored and checking my watch LESS THAN AN HOUR INTO THE FILM.

It picked up a bit once they got back into the Matrix, but really the only scene that inspired any kind of interest or excitement in me was the whole freeway chase/fight. Too bad it had to be surrounded by excruciatingly terrible dialogue, overlong and pointless scenes, grade-school philosophy and boring, contrived action. It's clearly been padded out to make two films out of a script that would suffice as one.

So Reloaded sucked, and that's a fact, and anyone who says different I'll take on like Neo fighting all those clones of Agent Smith.
 
 
Secularius
23:20 / 17.05.03
Was I the only one who noticed the obvious resemblance of the Architect to Sigmund Freud?
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
02:42 / 18.05.03
Hopefully then, in the next one we'll see him doing lines of coke and pointing at Neo with a cigar before telling how he constructed the Matrix to make his mother happy. Let's face it: they probably could shoehorn it in.

Cameron: You are The Man.

Even if a fraction of these ideas had been thought out by the WBs, then I think the film has multiple layers of richness that just astound me.
You'll note that they've been curiously silent on the philosophic import of the flick. Could it be because they just made a slightly interesting blow-shit-up movie - and that's all - and people read more stuff into it because they wanted it to be there? Remember, if you go looking for something in a piece of art, you'll always find something to support your theories. Does nobody remember the cover for Abbey Road, for fuck's sake?

(Barefoot and out of step! He's dead! Alas, no, he's still alive and is making shit albums. And marrying amputees.)

I just don't see how this is a mindfuck of a film. Earcocking, possibly, but mindfuck? Hmm.

Can someone explain the spiritual overtones of having to fly a camera up someone's digital vagina? Because I'm afraid I Just Don't Get It.

Actually, that brings me to a currently-processing bugbear: is it just me, or does anyone else think that the presentation of women in this thing is fucked up? I mean, it's just... icky, methinks. True, there ain't a lot of development in any characters, but most of the women (the Oracle excepted) are presented in a light that made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Persephone is all cleavage and "yeah, sure, I'll give you exactly what you want but how's about a snog, baby?", Trinity's not much better, and then there's the blowjob-inducing cake-eater - wtf? I didn't like that aspect: even the toughest woman in the flick, Niobe, who'd been hyped up a bit, was on-screen for only about 10 minutes and relevant for even less.

Someone from work met one of the brothers during the shoot, and reputedly, he was INCREDIBLY uncomfortable around women. Though this could've been because she and her friends kept loudly saying "Where's Keanu?" for the rest of the evening. But still... hmm.
 
 
makeitbleed
02:54 / 18.05.03
23 humans.
ws this just to get the number 23 in this thing?

and i think it broke down to 16 women and 7 men.

i would love to know how the previous matrices "failed." everyone was cranky? wouldn't that increase energy output?

ignoring this is pretty lazy. unless one of the animatrices explains this. any thoughts?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
03:23 / 18.05.03
I dunno, Rothkoid, I don't think there was any gender bias in the presention of shoddy characters. Trinity ("Trinity!") is playing a time-honored role as supporter/defender of the male hero. Neo is more properly "Nemo," I think -- his personality is so abstract and general that any viewer can insert them themselves into his part. He's a walking wish-fulfilment. You might be able to except these two from the usual Freudian sexual-political analysis on the grounds that they're so completely mythical, they're in Jung's camp.

All the others, male and female, are plot dressing. The "digital vagina" is tantric... there was another tantra thing, I forget what it was now. Someone turned into a big ball of light. Also, it backed up the sex=death motif, like the sex/dance scene that ends with an image of Trinity being shot while she falls off a building. Clumsy. No amount of superphilosophical fatbearding is going to make up for characters we can't possibly give a shit about. Morpheus is the only character who approaches being interesting, as a fanatic who learns that his prophecy is part of the trap--you know, like when the soccer mom learns that Kathy Lee employs child-slave labor... and maybe that's why the Black Studies professors like it. Maybe in the third installment of the kabillion dollar franchise they'll run with that a little.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
03:38 / 18.05.03
Forgot to mention the really sublime bit. The trailer for Terminator 3 ran before the movie. Arnie with his face burned half off bemoans his fate: "I am not a man! I am a machine!"
 
 
Tamayyurt
04:45 / 18.05.03
Qalyn- The Zion world is part of the Matrix, too. The people in the Matrix are solving an equation, not feeding robots.

Where did you get this from? I thought about this but I didn't know it was in the movie (maybe I missed while I was looking at my watch).

And about the knee-jerk reaction to what we think the movie should've been, is fucking right. At the end of the first movie it kind leads you to believe that Neo is now going to fuck shit up in a big way. I was expecting him to move beyond kung-fu. I was expecting him to show others how to do what he does. By now, Morpheus and Trinity should be able to fly around and do whatever they want... they know physical laws are utter bullshit in the Matrix and they've seen first hand what can be done. I thought Neo was going to grow into a divine being and become a force so powerful any and every program would rather cut out their left nut before confronting him. I thought he was going to have an army of flying, super powerful, fully awake followers fighting the new unbelievable Agents 2.0!

But instead I get a seriously depowered Neo getting fucking lectured to and fighting nearly mindless obsolete, although hard to kill, programs with fucking sais.

Was I expecting too much? I'm a fucking nobody, 24-year-old kid and I've dreamt up a better movie. I think the WB,with their vast resources, could have surpassed me if they'd just given it a little more fucking thought.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
05:20 / 18.05.03
Where did you get this from? I thought about this but I didn't know it was in the movie (maybe I missed while I was looking at my watch).

Neo's "real" body resembles exactly his Matrix body, right? And the Matrix has been running for over a hundred years--not this exact one, but the Matrix project or whatever. Zion has a hundred-year collective memory. When he's in the Achitect's chamber, why do all the previous Neos look exactly like him? Why does the camera keep zooming through the monitors to show this? How does he use the same big brain shield to deflect the tentacle-monster at the end as he uses to stop bullets in the Matrix? And why is he unconscious now?

All the iterations of the Matrix are running simultaneously, and the Zion world is the part of the Matrix that deals with the stuff that isn't accounted for in the 'normal' mode. Neo has taken another reality pill.

The issue in the next installment, I think, will be whether there's an actual 'outside,' or whether the Architect, the Keymaker, the Oracle, the Merryl-Lynchian, et al, are like the crew of the Nebechednezzar on another order of magnitude, but still inside the Matrix. But that really isn't that interesting. I'd much rather see how Morpheus deals with his crisis of faith; I think he actually is the One, and Neo is John the Baptist. But, as Cameron said, it's a little ridiculous to stretch this preamble out into a megazillion dollar trilogy.
 
 
vajramukti
12:51 / 18.05.03
a few more thoughts...

has anyone noticed how agent smith has become the kind of virus he accused the humans of being in the first one? he is now exactly what he hated before. he's experiencing an expanded consciousness, and hates neo for it. he was comfortable in his niche, didn't want to be moved out of it.

at the same time, he's aware of his expanded possiblities in way neo seems not to be. 'flexing all the muscles except the on that matters' etc.

on the one hand this gives a good pretext for all the flying kung fu and such, which would be even more silly if neo were a litteral god in the matrix, able to bend time and space to his whim.

i think expectations play a big role in this film. the first played on expectations of the messiah, and godlike liberation at the end, which proved not to be the case. the WB use this. neo is still bound by his own expectations, and moves past them only under extreme stress. his idea of 'freeing his mind' is to play superman, and 99% of the time that is enough, but it's not all he's capable of. I think the end shows this, where his consciousness is forced to move outside his role in the matrix, and begin interacting with the 'real' world.

I've experienced that sort of thing in meditation, to a leeser extent obviously. you reach these blissfull transcendental states where anything seems possible, and when you come down, you need to integrate that into the walking around life you have, and that tends to be bound by your mental boxes on things. there's an expansion, but you fall into the trap of stopping short of what is possible because of comfortable concepts.
 
 
GenFu
14:11 / 18.05.03
Saw it yesterday (cheeky cam-job off the net...).
Basically I really liked it, it goes deeper than the first film. I think it's really cool that a mainstream action film can touch on the kind of philosophies as this does. On the subject of the Invisibles, there's loads of similarities but I don't think it's worth calling it a rip off, because it is significantly different in many ways.
The action sequences were pretty cool. I liked the 'mob of Agent Smiths' scene, and the motorway scene rocked too. Cars look beautiful when they are destroyed. To criticise the action scenes as overly indulgent is kinda missing the point really: the Matrix is an action film...
The only criticism I would make, is that the film's structure didn't feel as solid as the first, and it wasn't quite as tight, or 'classic'. The soundtrack wasn't as good either, which was one of the things that made the first film so cool.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
15:51 / 18.05.03
Haven't seen the film yet, but...

this is a major headbomb for middle america.

Oh come the fuck on.

What, were they all a bunch of drooling retards before the Matrix came along? Fuck off, you condescending prick.
 
 
CameronStewart
16:09 / 18.05.03
Actually, Flux, I think I would agree with that statement - people like you and I, who have been raised on a diet of comic books and science fiction, would find the concepts explored in the Matrix movies to be nothing new or particularly challenging, but I've talked to a great many people who HAVEN'T read comics or seen many sci-fi movies, who thought the first Matrix was completely mind-blowing, and in a few cases didn't even understand it fully.

Matrix Reloaded still sucks.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
16:50 / 18.05.03
When you phrase it that way, it becomes a very different thing than the comment that I was reacting to. That guy wasn't talking about sci fi or comics, he was talking about "Middle America." And let's assume that what you say is what he really meant to say, it's still annoying because "Middle America" is responsible for a huge chunk of the comics/sci-fi created and consumed over the past several decades.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
18:10 / 18.05.03
Blah. Quote-unquote Middle America should read a book.
 
 
PatrickMM
18:48 / 18.05.03
To the majority of people, The concepts in The Matrix were entirely new, and the look of the film was completely fresh. I saw it before I had read The Invisibles, but after some PKD, and the ideas felt a bit derivative, but the look of the film was entirely new.

To "Middle America," before The Matrix, sci-fi was Star Trek, Star Wars or Independence Day. There hadn't been that much sci-fi that wasn't set in the future, or was just about aliens. And what sci-fi there was like that, didn't go over well. People were truly surprised by the concepts in The Matrix, and I think the ideas in Reloaded about choice, etc. will also surprise your average viewer.

However, while it will surprise them, I also don't think most of "Middle America" even wants to hear about that. They probably wanted to just skip over all the dialogue, especially stuff like the architect, and go right to the fight scenes.

There's one reason The Matrix was successful, and that's the shot of Neo dodging bullets. This movie will succeed, and most people will like it because the action sequences were some of the best ever filmed. People here can complain about the movie all they want, but in the real world, it's going to make at least $300 million, and will probably have cleared $150 million by tomorrow.

So, Reloaded will not be a mind bomb to "Middle America" because they won't be listening to the philosophy, or talking about the issues raised by the movie. They'll just come out saying how cool in the action sequences were. I thought The Architect was the most important, and probably best sequence in the movie, but most people will just wonder who he was, and why he wasn't fighting anyone. I think the benefit of Reloaded will be to lead people to PKD and The Invisibles, which is what the first one did for me, and then they can truly get "woken up."

That said, I still think it's an excellent film, and the issues raised by the ending are extremely interesting. This is not another Phantom Menace, it's a better film than the first one, with a significantly greater scope.
 
 
PatrickMM
18:50 / 18.05.03
One question on Reloaded. I was under the impression that at the end all of Zion was destroyed, and the Agent Smith they picked up was the only survivor in the whole city, but one of my friends said that he was the only survivor of the initial attack. So, is Zion destroyed, or did the first defense just fail? And, not because I want to be right, just becuase it was such a bad part of the movie, I really hope Zion is finished.
 
 
I, Libertine
20:21 / 18.05.03
For the first half of this thread, I was reading "the WB" as The Duhbya Bee, shorthand for Warner Brothers.

Now it's obvious to me why the WB ("Wachowski Bros.") don't give any interviews: they are a fiction perpetuated by Warner Bros. to create the illusion that The Matrix is anything but a mass-market eye-candy consumable for Armchair Revolutionaries.

If the lameness of Matrix: Reloaded pisses you off, you were expecting too much.

As for the similarities with Grant's work, the line that resonated most was Agent Smith's, "It's me! All me! Me me me!" Even a cursory glance at The Filth will prove that Grant's disappeared right up his own bunghole.

The film was a more-enjoyable-than-not 2.5 hrs. for me. What pissed me off most was the fire alarm right before the preview for Revolutions. What'd it look like?
 
 
Seth
20:45 / 18.05.03
Barbelith Project Idea:

We survey acquaintances. Not friends, as they may well share our interests. At random. We'll quiz them on what they thought of the ideas as they were presented in the movie, whether it's familiar material, whether it intrigued them or put them off, whether they want to find out more.

I'll ask people in my workplace when I'm back off holiday. It's the only way we'll settle this question about whether these movies have any kind of influence.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
20:53 / 18.05.03
Wow. The wrong-headed condescension of PatrickMM's comments re: Middle America and sci-fi is the real "mind bomb" here, I think. I'm totally blown away by how little credit one man can give to a wide range of people, and how weak a grasp of sci-fi/comics history one person can have before they feel fit to make sweeping statements about how "Middle America" responds to it. Mind Bomb! KABOOOOOOOM!

Let me guess: people didn't know that they hated their jobs and distrusted contemporary culture until Radiohead released OK Computer, right?
 
  

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