Discuss.
Appearances, as you well know, can be deceiving.
Neo, you're not the One! You're the Two! --JoshMiddendorf, who has not seen the movie as of 5/16/2003.
I went in with low expectations (because i don't trust hollywood to actually tell a consistent story, but instead to pander to what is considered the tastes of the masses, which generally suck). I was pleasantly surprised. Without really spoiling the movie i have a few things to say. First, the action scenes are a little long and a little overdone. (In particular the one with all the Smiths thats in the previews is really really long). They do too much camera freezing and twirling about and too much "exposition" of their fight choreography and special effects. The brilliance of the first movie was knowing where the happy medium was, this movie lost track of that somewhere. On the other hand, i found the philosophy well handled and accessible to anyone with little actual knowledge of the material but the willingness to think about it. (Its not Zen though, its a conflict between Taoism and European thinkers like Des Cartes and Sartres). They also have a beautifully executed plot twist, and manage to make their world logically consistent (or close enough that i'm willing to trust them until the next movie to explain a couple of things). Also shocking, Keanu Reeves manages to convince me his character is actually in love with Trinity... for an actor who's pre-matrix high point was BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure?, this is truly astonishing. (Those of you who do want to see him stand there, look cool, and say stupid things in his "i'm high and confused" way won't be disappointed though). Definitely worth seeing, but see the first one before you do (like you haven't already). --NickJohnson Sorry, but his pre-Matrix high point was definitely Speed. --RichardGarfinkel
I found the party scene in Zion to be waaaay too long given that it had almost no point. Except FanService. --SeleneTan (More like fan disservice. --AdamField)
Well, this movie does more than its share of pandering to the MTV generation, but despite that I liked it a lot. The action scenes are really quite spectacular, especially the highway chase and some of the agent battles. The plot is sort of hinging on the next movie: if they wrap things up nicely in MatrixRevolutions?, this could be really great, if not, it's just a confused mess, but still an entertaining one. Having now come back to this after "Matrix Revolutions", I can safely say that the plot of both sequels is a confused, unfocused set of half-finished ideas.. The philosophy was kind of a mixed bag. Some of it was really good while some scenes were just plain awkward (the scene where that French guy goes off on a tangent about causality comes to mind). Definitely worth seeing, maybe even twice, though I feel that some strategic cutting of about 15 minutes (starting with the whole party/sex scene) would have improved this movie a fair ammount. --AlexBobbs