Matrix Reloaded
Directed by the Wachowski Brothers
2003 UK 15 USA R
Review by Eadon
The phenomenon of the Matrix is what happens
when you have a corporation-like authority with
too much control. Humans get stamped out. This
is what is happening today, for example with
Microsoft's monopolistic domination of personal
computers. Almost everyone is owned by Microsoft.
Our only hope, our Neo, is Linux, and other
Free Open Source software.
For the two people on the planet that do not
know,
Matrix Reloaded
is the sequel to
The Matrix.
The plot revolves around the battles between
humans and AI. Basically the last refuge of
humans is Zion: a horrible, stinky ghetto, an
unconvincing city that is based unfeasibly deep
underground. Yadda yadda. The AI machines send
in the "Sentinels" and we have a race against
time situation on our hands. Eeh by heck! During
the opening chapters,
Matrix Reloaded
tries desperately to make us care about Zion.
And fails dismally. I was staring at my watch,
waiting for the action and philosophy to start.
Which, thankfully, eventually it does, and the
movie never looks back. Beware: the
Matrix
Reloaded contains the line "
wegoddageddouddahere!"
The Eadon Law of movies says that a movie with
a line like,
wegoddageddouddahere,
is likely to suck the balls off a dead baboon.
But, strangely, this movie doesn't. Suck, that
is.
In some ways
Matrix Reloaded
is sexier than the original: we get a sex scene,
albeit a sanitised one, and a finely breasted
tart called Persephone, whom solicits from Keanu
a strange favour in the gents toilets. I kid
you not! In front of his missus no less. Ooh
the bitch!
On the other hand
Matrix Reloaded
lacks the visceral shock of the first, what,
with being a sequel and all that, DOH! But this
problem was needlessly exacerbated because they
went and put some of the most spectacular scenes
in the bloody trailer, didn't they? So when
said spectacular scenes appeared, I was inoculated
against their power, and unsurprised by the
plot twist. Indeed, trying to anticipate when
certain scenes from the trailer would appear
in the movie continually distracted me. Appalling.
When will the freaking idiots in marketing stop
sabotaging our enjoyment of films by forcing
us to watch spoilers, masquerading as adverts,
for their shit? These marketers are vandals,
spraying gaudy paint all over the movie screen
of fun. Stop it, marketers, cease and desist!
Tossers.
There are new baddies in this movie, The Twins.
These are played by real life identical twins,
which is a nice irony, given that
Matrix
Reloaded digitally clones characters
seemingly at will. What is doubly amazing is
that these twins are so perfect in the role.
They get to utter about 6 words, and each one
made me chuckle with delight, like the village
retard that I am.
I loved the debate about freewill. Loved it loved it loved it unconditionally. Some decent philosophical debate within a movie, yessss! Other filmmakers should pay attention. The Matrix is a runaway financial monster. The audience do appreciate some intellectual banter mixed in with all the knee-jerk violence and gormless romance. Even if they do not understand it, they get the feeling they are watching something deep and are grateful they are not being patronised. Not even total morons object if you sweeten the red pill with special effects, action and sex. Sex. Not romance, I might add. Leave romance for fluffy "romantic comedies".
There you have it, the perfect movie: lots of plot and philosophy, social comment, plenty of skin, sex, cut out the clichéd romance drivel and give us lashings of original special effects and violence, but only if they help drive the plot forward.
Matrix Reloaded, like 99% of Hollywood movies, was scared to show skin. Why? What is wrong with that? Our American puritan guardians are determined to stop youths seeing a pair of breasts on the screen. Those guys are positively medieval in their backwards mentality. Torture people, shoot people, kill people gratuitously, yeah! But, oh heaven no, it is really immoral to show our citizens some skin. It's a sick, religious global society we are cursed with, I suppose. Zion had an orgy scene, yet it was impossibly lame.
Talking of which, in
Matrix Reloaded,
the last remaining city of mankind is named
after a holy name for Jerusalem: Zion. One wonders
about the significance of this, especially given
that Hollywood is run by Jews. Before I get
conflagrations of flames, this is not a racist
statement, I am fond of the Jews and know quite
a few personally so no offence intended. That
Hollywood is essentially Jewish is simply a
statement of fact and I don't see how stating
it can be construed as offensive, unless people
are offended by the rampant nepotism that goes
on. Marlon Brando pointed this out, and all
hell was let loose, and lackeys like that scientology
weirdo, Tom Cruise, were bullied by Hollywood
into signing a public statement smearing Brando
as anti-Semitic. Hollywood was founded by Eastern
European Jews, and studio heads and other top-level
execs have been Jewish ever since. I'm not a
fan of Hollywood, but that is merely because
they produce far too much unoriginal crap these
days, and freeze out international cinema, via
their monopolistic distribution practices. Worse,
Hollywood is buying increasingly draconian copyright
laws from Congress to remove more of our freedoms
to copy and distribute movies we have bought
and supposedly own. Anyway, back to my original
point: given the fact that Hollywood is a Jewish
institution, it is curious that the Matrix trilogy
seems to concern the need to have a city called
"Zion" (Jerusalem?) claim the Earth from its
enemies. Could this all be another slice of
propaganda supporting Israel against Palestinians,
against the world? Zionist conspiracy theories
ahoy! :)
Permit me to rant about an insidious movie trend
that has worsened in the last month or so, at
least here in England. Before a movie starts,
I have to sit through two screens of crass MPAA
"warnings" threatening me should I
record the crappy movie (this is akin to those
irritating and pointless warnings on videos
and DVD's). If I pay money, why the hell should
I sit through boring and annoying threats issued
by a greedy monopoly? If this bullshit continues,
I will seriously cut down on the number of movies
I watch. Increasingly, I feel as if I am living
in a draconian, Orwellian state, with evil corporations
like the MPAA/Hollywood studio cartel policing
me. They scream at you: you are NOT allowed
to do this, you are NOT allowed to do that (as
if that would deter real pirates). Fine, then
if you annoy me, you are ruining my experience
and, out of indignation, I will boycott your
products. If I go to a shop to buy something
other than movies, music and software, I am
not lectured on what I can and cannot do with
*my* new possession. I bought it. If I want
to make back up copies or lend it to friends
etc, then I should be allowed to, and I shouldn't
be subjected to damned warnings. This is madness,
it is as if every time I walk down the street,
a policeman pesters me, shouting to me I am
not allowed to commit crimes and that if I do,
I may be fined or sent to jail. These petty
MPAA warnings really put me in a relaxed mood
to enjoy the movie... NOT!
It is sad that I can't watch a movie these days
without having it ruined by revealing trailers,
and finding myself having to sit through warnings
that insinuate that I am a criminal. Screw you,
MPAA, you will be getting less of my disposable
income in the future, and I hope others follow
suit.
Rant Over! Ah yes, I was reviewing
Matrix
Reloaded. Well,
Reloaded
has countless startling effects shots, from
the twirling Sentinals, to Trinity's sensational
bullet time fall from the building, to the colliding
trucks, to the Agent Smith clones fights, and
on and on. That plus the cogitations on
cause
and effect and the relationships between
man and machine, oh and the funky stuff about
programs within programs means that this movie
gets a high score. There is lots of juicy analysis
on
Matrix Reloaded
in Spoilers Corner below, but see it first.
What the hell, the trailer has given away the
plot anyway :)
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spoilers corner
Spoilers!!!!
Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks :-)
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One of the most alarming scenes of this movie involved the girl eating the cake. The green-matrix shot that zoomed between her legs was simply scary! I'm not sure if I want to speculate what was going on there :)
The explanation about rebellious AI
programs hiding in the Matrix was great,
I was actually convinced by that. Even
with anti-virus detection and other
security measures, the Internet still
infects zillions of systems each year.
Mostly via Microsoft Windows, Microsoft
Outlook, Microsoft IIS and Microsoft
IE. "Trusted computing" my arse! Go
Linux! Nice to see that Munich is switching
from Windows to Linux and Open Office.
A whole city running on open
source software is cool, the people
own their own software, not the corporations.
That is how it should be. I make no
apology for repeating this: the Matrix
is what happens when you have a corporation-like
authority in total control. (Or approximating
total control).
I must admit I was a bit disappointed
with one aspect this movie. I LOVED
Agent Smith in the first movie. Here
though, he is little more than a harmless
stooge. The scenes with multiple Agent
Smiths should have seemed awesome, but
instead they seemed bizarre, verging
on comical. It must have been the sight
of a hundred heads with receding hairlines
that did it. The moment I saw the herd
of receding hairlines I couldn't take
this movie seriously. Hah, as if it
should be taken seriously.
But it only works if you DO take it
seriously, if you know what I mean.
This isn't like James Bond where it
adds to the fun to take it all with
a pinch of salt and have a chuckle at
the glorious silliness. The Matrix
Reloaded is so silly that
it demands to be taken seriously or
it collapses under its own weight and
the illusion evaporates into a million
polygon shards.
The Morpheus fight on the truck was
frustrating, it showed him teetering
impossibly on the brink of falling off,
then in the next shot he has suddenly
recovered his balance, but how he pulled
back from the edge is not shown.
When one of the baddies says that freewill is an illusion he is dead right. Neuroscientists are discovering that the conscious mind is only aware of what decisions have been made once they have been made by some mysterious entity. Buddhists think the same thing, they point out that Freewill, the I, the me, is like the soul, a fictional entity that cannot be nailed down. They say we are the sum of natural processes. This is astonishingly compatible with what science is finding out.
Oh god no, curse the Trinity resurrection
scene. She was better off dead; she
was boring playing the love interest
anyway. When the Matrix trilogy can
arbitrarily resurrect people, the franchise
cheats as badly as the bible. Where
the Matrix copies the Bible, it is well
to remember that the bible itself was
a fax of older creeds, stories, creation
myths and religions both preserved by
and destroyed by the fortunes of antiquity.
A friend, Palamambron, points out that the scene with the programmer is a complete rip-off the movie "Zardoz", when the main character enters the prism.
For me a weakness with The Matrix movies
is Keanu "Neo" Reeves, who
is a bit like what I imagine an AI
to be: lacking in character and depth.
Perhaps this foreshadows a wacky plot
twist in part 3, who knows? On a related
topic, the only really human guy in
the Matrix is Agent Smith. I empathise
with Agent Smith.
So now it is revealed to us that Keanu
can stop the Sentinels in the "Real
World". The filmmakers seem to be ruining
one of the cleverest points of the first
Matrix movie: that Neo was God in the
Matrix but vulnerable in the "real world".
What is the "real world", yet another
Matrix, with a recursive loop of Matrices
within Matrices? We'll see how it all
turns out, no doubt.
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There are no more spoilers below this
point, except maybe in any user talkback
comments.
End of spoilers corner
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The Architect turns out to be
Dude.
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Talon | Subject: | 2003-05-30 03:40:05 |
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