Today's Review: The Matrix: Reloaded (DVD)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss
Written and Directed by: The Wachowski Brothers
Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5)
If you wish to subscribe email
The Naked Critic
First of all, yeah yeah. I know this has been out for a week, technically
making this a late review. However, this is due to 2 reasons:
1) I've been busier than hell. This is why the DVD reviews for "Wrong
Turn", which I hope to send out tomorrow, will be late as well. Same with
"28 Days Later". I'm a busy guy...day job and everything. I
swear.
But more than that, THIS review is late because
2) It took me almost a week to watch it.
And this, my friends, is a big part of the flaw with "The Matrix:
Reloaded". Allow me to explain.
(Hey, did you see what I just did there? I made my excuse part of the review!
I'd like to see Roger Ebert try THAT! HA! Where's MY Pulitzer?)
Okay, show of hands...who here thought that "The Matrix" was great,
but would have been better with more special effects, a half hours worth of
meaningless dialogue, and an extended scene of Keanu Reeves banging Carrie-Anne
Moss?
If your hand is up, then this is going to be like Gone With The Wind for you.
Oh, and you desperately need help.
So, the sequel takes place some time after the first. I'm not exactly sure how
long, but long enough that Tank - the pilot or whatever of the Nebuchadnezzar -
has been replaced by a dude named Link, and nobody seems to think that it's
odd.
But all is not well. They're still fighting the machines and trying to protect
the last human city of Zion. Making matters worse, Neo (who I like to call
"Ne-whoa"...you know, because Keanu Reeves is a talentless tool.) is
having nightmares about his ladylove Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) being killed. I
can understand this, in a way. If you love somebody, then a dream about them
dying is pretty terrifying. However, he's dreaming about her dying in her
trademark tight patent-leather fetish-gear, and he wakes up sweating. I think
Neo is actually a BDSM freak-gone-wrong.
An aside - what is the big friggin' deal about Carrie-Anne Moss? She's not ugly
by any stretch of the imagination, but the geeks who are into this movie
worship her like she's Carrie Fisher in the gold bikini. She's a great actress,
and not hard on the eyes, but guys, get a grip, will you? When you're
fantasizing about Carrie-Anne Moss as the ultimate babe, you REALLY need to get
out more.
And the same goes to you girls who worship John Cusack. Thank you.
Back to the movie. They find out that the machines are going to attack Zion in
a short while. So they head back to the city, where Morpheus (Laurence
Fishburne) has to deal with an old flame named Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith),
whose only real job seems to be to prance around in Ben Affleck's
"Daredevil" costume.
Once back, they argue with some council or something about what they're going
to do. Morpheus is convinced that he needs to go back into the Matrix with Neo
so he can do something that he's destined to do and blah blah blah. Meanwhile,
everyone else thinks he should stay there with the ship and fight, because
they're going to be annihilated in a couple of days. At this point, I'm siding
with the Council. I mean, that's like finding out that your house is going to
be hit with a nuclear missle, and then going down the street to the pub for a
beer.
Meanwhile, Morpheus gives a long, boring speech in front of a blue-screen with
about a bazillion "people" listening. And afterwards, knowing that
they may not survive the attack and that the end could be near, they react like
anyone else would...by having a rave.
Everyone of course except Neo and Trinity, who are off somewhere doing the ol'
Mommy-Daddy dance.
An aside. We all KNOW Reeves is a bad actor. And I'm aware that I just said
that Moss isn't as hot as people say she is. What I think is TELLING about
Reeves here is that he now has to ACT like he's enjoying having sex with her,
and he can't pull it off. Even I could act like I was enjoying having sex with
her...but with him, you get the same blank reaction you've seen from him since
he had to work out long division at the blackboard in the 3rd grade. Christ,
Keanu...if you have to pretend that she's David Geffen, then do it. But ACT for
Christ's sake!
Afterwards, he leaves and has a long, long, LOOONG conversation with one of the
old council dudes. And, by the way, all this boring stuff? It takes over a half
hour to happen. At this point, I turned the DVD off out of sheer boredom and
didn't put it in again until the last possible second.
How boring is it? Here's some sample George Lucas-esque dialogue:
Councillor Harmann: Sometimes I think about all those people still
plugged into the Matrix... And when I'm down here, and I see these machines, I
can't help but think that in some way we are plugged into them.
Neo: But we control these machines; they don't control us.
Councillor Harmann: No, of course not. How could they? The idea is pure
nonsense... But it does make one think... Just... What is control?
Neo: Well, if we wanted, we could shut these machines down.
Councillor Harmann: Oh! Of course! That's it! You hit it! That's
control, isn't it? If we wanted we could smash them to bits! Of course, if we
did, we'd have to consider what would happen to our lights, our heat, our
air...
Neo: So we need machines and they need us, is that your point,
Councillor?
Councillor Harmann: No. No point. Old men like me don't bother making
points. There's no point.
Yeah...no S**T there's no point. F**k...if you guys were in "Waiting For
Godot", he'd SHOW UP just to move the story along!!! No wonder I turned it
off.
By the way, I didn't transcribe that. The above pointless conversation is
courtesy of the fantastic Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) If you're
unfamiliar with it, it's the movie-geek's Mecca. I mean, where ELSE could you
read transcribed, pointless conversations like that? Or useless trivia
like:
"Trinity uses a genuine hack to get into the Matrix. She uses Nmap version
2.54BETA25 (an actual port scanning tool) to find a vulnerable SSH server, and
then proceeds to exploit it using the SSH1 CRC32 exploit from 2001."
Holy SHIT! WHO CARES??? You read stuff like this, and all of a sudden William
Shatner's infamous "Get A Life" sketch on Saturday Night Live isn't
so much satire as it is a desperate plea for help.
So, anyway, Neo is summoned by The Oracle, at which point all Hell breaks
loose. Oh, and "Agent Smith" (Hugo Weaving) from the first movie can
now replicate himself, which is quite bothersome.
All right. I know, it sounds like I hate this movie. I don't though. I hate the
first half hour. It makes "The Phantom Menace" seem as intelligent
and thought out as "The Usual Suspects."
Besides, don't you all secretly want me to hate everything I see?
But, at this point, it becomes the action-packed orgy of high-tech action
you're hoping for...and then some. This movie, quite frankly, contains some of
the BEST action scenes you will ever see. The "Freeway" chase, which
everyone has at least heard about, is incredible. And there's one scene where
Neo fights about a hundred "Agent Smiths" that is one of the coolest
fight scenes I have ever seen. Period. (And if you've seen it, help me out
here. There's one point where Neo throws one "Agent Smith" into a
bunch more, and I swear I heard the sound effect of bowling pins being knocked
down. Am I nuts, or is that there?)
But even that isn't enough for a 4-star rating. That comes with the extras.
These are as entertaining as the movie. If you think that freeway scene is
intricate, well, you don't know the half of it. Wait until you see what they
had to do to shoot it. All of a sudden, it seems like money well spent.
And I know there's been a lot of complaining about the ending being too sudden.
For my money, it's just right. Considering I was so bored by the first half
hour of the movie that I elected to watch things like "The Joe Schmoe
Show" instead, my appetite is still whetted for the finale.
One other complaint: One of the best things about the original is that it
wasn't so "epic" in scope. A lot of times, this one feels like the
Wachowskis are trying too hard to impress. It's like they're saying,
"Wow...look at how much MONEY we have to play with." Piece of advice,
boys...next time, hire a script doctor to punch up the dialogue. PLEASE.
Then again, it's a slick, solid, entertaining product...once it gets going. If
they release a "special edition", I'd recommend trimming that first
part by about 15 minutes. As it is, it's great...once you get there.
And, on the off chance you're looking for more minutiae from IMDB, here's
another tidbit I found:
"When Trinity hacks the Power Station's computer, the password she uses is
'Z1ON0101.'"
You're welcome.
BACK
|
|
|