More astute grapefruit readers will notice that while every man and his dog[ftn] reviewed The Matrix Reloaded, I did not. This was because I had nothing nice to say about it. Boring, pointless and dull kind of sums up my opionion on that one. OK, I’ll grant you, the highway chase wasn’t ‘dull’. But I found the Wachowski’s final installment far better.
This time round, the characters know what they’re doing, and they make choices for reasons other than “The Oracle/The Keymaker/The Architect told me to”. Agent Smith actually has a clear objective, Morpheus shuts up, and we see even more of Monica Belluci’s…
Don’t look at me like that. It was blatant, I tell you, blatant.
The battle for Zion in particular is tremendous to watch. There’s a clear logic to the scene, and the audience has to do little of the usual head-fudging necessary to believe that the good guys really could have achieved what they did. The Kid from The Animatrix isn’t quite as irritating this time round, and Link’s wife stops moping about and does something. In general, Zion comes off a lot better here than in Reloaded.
The most important advantage this film has over its predecessor is DESPERATION, however. Morpheus has much less to do, because at this stage of the game, there’s not much call for people to swan about in arrogant declaration that they know what’s going to happen. No one does, not even the oracle, and the crazy foretelling logic established previously is put to good use here. Neo becomes slightly more interesting too, though it appears that there is some clause involving a lack of ability to smile when you become ‘The One’. He does start calling Trinity ‘Trin’, though.
Some have complained about the opening hour or so. While the little story here does seem curiously disconnected from the upcoming events, it does establish the adorable Sati, as well as allowing us a final nostalgic glimpse of original Matrix-style action. Well, final until we see any other action film about. This wasn’t a problem at all for me.
Not that I didn’t have some. The Wachowski’s could learn a bit of subtlety when it comes to love. “Love’s good!” “Love is wonderful!” “Don’t mess with her — she’s in love.” There’s a teensy theme in this film about how love’s nifty — watch out for it. It’s also apparent in how freaking long Trinity-Neo scenes go on for. At one point, having been separated for a bit, Trinity rushes to her lover… In slow motion.
Which would be fine, but I got the impression we weren’t supposed to be laughing at this. Basically, use your 6 year old sensibilities here, and tune out in the mushy bits.
The pointless philosophising is a little less pointless in this film, but amusingly, at the expense of the previous film’s already irritating conclusion. I may have missed something, but it certainly seems that the resolution to much of what the Architect said was “Oh, him. He talks bollocks.” At least, no one spends fifteen minutes explaining causality again. But still, the exposition is laid on rather thick. We’re a long way from the subtle ‘pick it up as you go along’ world-builing of the original Matrix. I counted three times I had the Trainman (who, presumably we can also refer to as ‘The Australian’) and his limbo explained to me.
In the end, this is a decent science fiction film. Dirty rebels fighting technologically advanced enemies, kung fu, lame character interactions, and girls with big boobs. Is it as good as The Matrix? Why, no, of course not. But surely we all figured out that we weren’t going to see anything like that again after Reloaded? You’ll probably enjoy it, but your socks will remain resolutely unblown.
Footnotes
- Don’t take this personally, Andy and Shannon.