Jesus, has a DVD cover ever felt so unintentionally uncool? Today was the first time I saw the second Matrix movie all the way through. I'd seen the climactic final half hour before, years ago on HBO, and it left me thinking that this was a complex but cool movie. And it was. But it was really far more of a kung-fu action movie than a sci-fi mindbender and it suffered accordingly. I can't say there wasn't enough plot and I can't say there wasn't enough action and I can't say the movie was too long, but it just didn't wow me nearly as much as its predecessor. The pacing was pretty messed up too; we had people dancing in caves and little else for the first hour of the movie, and then in the final hour we're introduced to a shit ton of important characters - the Merovingian, Persephone, those weird albino twins, the Keymaker, and the Architect - and we're just kind of told what all of their roles are rather than shown. It just seems like instead of two additional movies, the Matrix franchise may have been better off wrapping things up with a miniseries. At least then we could have whole episodes dedicated to these different key characters instead of just ten minutes of screen time and a plethora of explanation. Add in the Smith "rogue virus" subplot, and the fact that he crosses from the cyber world into the real one while Neo acquires the power to control the real world in addition to the cyber one, and everything just seems like one great big mess of a movie. Granted, the fights and action scenes were definitely very cool. I would say that I hope the third movie is a lot better, but I've seen even more of that one (including the ending) and I only remember it being more "what the fuck" styled than this one. Oh well. I'll watch it as soon as Marissa wants to. Based on her reaction to this movie, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it to happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment