Backlog again. Sorry. I saw The Matrix Reloaded a week or more ago, but I’ve been to lazy to write about it until now.
Wellllllllllllll.
I’m not as disappointed as most of the other people on the ‘Net are, but I’m still disappointed. I didn’t find as much fault with it as Iambe did. She hated the soundtrack, and said that Reloaded abandoned the cool, anti-authoritarian message of The Matrix for a ‘You can’t understand anything because everything is beyond your control’ message.
I liked the soundtrack. And personally, the philosophy didn’t seem all that different.
What did disappoint me was the way the stories were mixed and matched. If they’d stuck with one plot element, the movie would have been much better. The renegade Agent Smiths and autonomous programs within the Matrix were a brilliant concept. I wish they’d been explored to the end instead of that diversion into the Architect and the iterations of the Matrix, instead of leaving two storylines to be tied up in Revolutions. Yes, Revolutions had better tie up the storylines properly, or I will be very upset. So, I suspect, will thousands of other geeks, who will all rampage on the streets, thirsty for the blood of the Wachowski brothers. It won’t be pretty.
Another disappointment was the lack of originality. The renegade programs were the one original idea in the movie, and like I said, they weren’t explored fully enough. As for style, it was good, but it just couldn’t live up to the first movie. Then again, what can live up to the promise of the first movie? 🙂 Still, the Zion docks looked like a plaigarisation of Star Trek’s Space Dock. More seriously, the entire movie somehow reminded me a lot of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. You haven’t read it? Shame on you.
Still, there was one thing about Reloaded that makes up for all the disappointment.
After seeing the Freeway scene, my mum now wants to learn to drive a motorcycle before she’s fifty. ’tis a consummation to be devoutly wished for.