Most Triumphant

Saw the Matrix2 last night. I understand it had problems. Especially visually. But saying that it was "dumber" or "nonsense" is silly. Scott Kurtz over at PVP reviewed it, and I have to say his criticisms are often right. But I can point out flaws just as big, if not bigger in XMen 2 (which I also liked a lot). Hello, the whole world suddenly is totally distracted by exploding headaches and millions of people don't die on the freeway? And lots of other little things, including Halle Berry. But, he is also often wrong. So, at the risk of spoilers, let me explain.

Yes, the plot is convoluted. As if the first movie wasn't? Yes, it was heavy handed. But apparently, running around saying, "there is no spoon!" and "Everything you see isn't real." isn't. And frankly, the script was just fine. Yes, the editing needed work. The Agent Smith fight scene went on too long. This is coming from a person who really likes action movies. Somehow I get the impression the Wachowski brothers were revelling in the fighting, and forgot to yell cut. Whatever. That makes a movie so bad it got him angry? Someone needs to see more movies. And no, Zion did not look that bad. It wasn't mindblowing, but what the hell were you expecting? On Morpheus: He was still very obviously revered. Just because there was resitance doesn't mean he wasn't revered. In fact, the big political guns all obviously agreed with him. Anybody running around talking about oracles and prophecies is going to run into people who think he's crazy. On Neo being confused as to what to do: Scenario: "You are the person who can save the world. So get going." "Uh..." As the film often reiterates, he's still human. He started doing what he could, freeing people individually, but as the to big picture, where's he supposed to start?
To its positive aspects, Shaun summed up the movie best in what he called, "a philosophy war." This film is more metaphysical that the original Matrix. It focuses more on more questions of philosophy. Yes, heavy-handedly. But as I mentioned earlier, so was the original. And heavy-handed isn't always bad--this is an action flick we're talking about. Schools of philosophy pop up and battle, characters act as avatars for religious (often tribal) faith, choice-bound humanism, Hume's Causation, Purpose, and destiny. There's an underlying theme of relationship--love--in the first film, and in Reloaded it steps up as one of these "philosophies"...a reason, a motivation. Neo must deal with all of these and decide which are the ones to keep and which are the ones to drop.
Another thing M2is doing is answering some of the questions about the first film that no one wanted to ask. "How did Zion even get there?" "How did the first guy get unplugged?" "How did he unplug other people?" The answers are the ones you might have guessed but hoped weren't true. Matrix: Reloaded also spends a lot of time mucking around with the computer-based concept of the first film, introducing programs and rogue programs and other consequences of things taking place in a computer. I like it. I like the hooks it brings to the world of the Matrix. A lot. And where the first film implicity played with the blurring of fiction and reality, the the second film began to and the third film is going to do it explicity...to be very honest, playing with that line has always been a pet theme of mine, which makes November very far away.

Yes. I can't get away from how cheesy and weird some of it is. But you know what The Matrix is for me? It's like studying under a really great teacher, who was kinda off-kilter, but passionate about what he was teaching and did it through movies or novels or things you wouldn't expect. The Matrix is being that teacher, getting me to ask questions and contemplate meaning through people in black leather kicking each other's asses.
Oh, and ghosty-things that are really damn freaky.

I like Ebert and Roeper's review. And agree.