Matrix Reloaded Review

I'll let ya know how I think about that when I see its screener next week.

Hmm... You don’t think Djangoism is contagious do you…

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You won't see Tank again in Revolutions. He had a contract argument with WB and/or the Wachowskis and will not reappear in the franchise.

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Everything is destined to reappear as simulation.
Jean Baudrillard
America, 1988

From someone who fully understood the first film and has watched it too many times to mention- my comprehension of the first film was total. I've studied eastern religion and alternative metaphysical teachings for over 6 years, so I feel I there is a grasp of theory and ideals for little old me(try reading Jane Robert's "Seth Speaks"). In the humble opinion of many other former Matrix fans and I, Reloaded did not ever ascend to that level of awareness as the first had. Its dialogue, rhythm, and visual story was trite, sometimes trainwrecking, and undeservingly pretentious. The CGI gripe I had was only the cosmetic tip of the entire iceberg of dissapointment. Tell me again and over how the sequel is a match or successor to the first, and I'll point to the more than supple amount of former fans waiting for the Revolutions video release, or not at all. Daredevil's release is the last time I saw such division in Nerdville-Oy vey...
By the way-o I've read X-men only since their death in Dallas, but I love the series. I'll see X2 again for a pick me up to this gnawing dissapointment I feel. Your pal-27 and NOT ENGAGED- nor enthralled- BY RELOADED.

Reinhardt.
-Research it.-

Yes, he was a fantastic musician indeed. Have you seen Sweet and Lowdown?

No, pathetically this one has not seen Mr. Allen's "Sweet-" Is it worth a rental in your opinion? Can you recomend anyone today that may play that style? I saw a musician in a Georgetown jazz saloon play some sweet thumb style improvised butter. Shweet.

Definitely check out Sweet and Lowdown; it's quite wonderful.

Unfortunately Kong cannot reccomend any modern Reinhardtesque guitarists. Kong is admittedly ignorant on much of swing/blues/jazz, but Kong does reccomend tuning into Nation Public Radio for the Saturday Night Fish-Fry if you live in the U.S. They play lots of fantastic old music on that program. (In Kongs home town it plays Sat. 10PM-12AM, but may be on at different times elsewhere.)

I would just like to mention that perhaps a lot of you guys who thought the film was pretentious or superficial (even the dude who boasted studying philosophy and religion for 6 years) are simply being too close minded. This is a great, thought provoking film if you would just put your thinking caps on. For instance, didn't it occur to anyone that film strongly suggests that even the "desert of the real" is actually another simulation, a "martix" within a "matrix" if you will, that was put in place as another level of control, to take car of the occasional human with revolutionary tendencies. And that Neo himself is just an inevitable side effect of the Matrix and that his role is integral to the system. Just think of the ramifications of that one idea... wow, what does that say about Jesus? Also, has anybody else got the idea that maybe the humans aren't really the vicitims at all, that perhaps the entire system was created by a future generation face with ecological disaster or some other unfortunate reality that was too hard too face. Perhaps Neo wrote the Matrix himself and, being a programming and hacking genius, included himself within the program to function as the ulitmate agent. Anyway, my point is, that if you think the movie is pretentious, perhaps you're just not looking at it from the right perspective. I think that it's a lot more complex than the first, which may or not ,make it a better flick, but regardless is sure gives you a lot to think about, and that is a very good thing.

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"down on your knees and ask
pardon, or I will stick this troll's
bane in you"

I've read metaphysical books that were absolutely striking as far as spirtual epiphanies and setting quantum mechanics vs. the holographic universe is concerned, go and there are a majority of blithering nuts who manage to publish stacks and volumes of thesaurus infused binded nonsense. There was a simple definable essence and rhythm to the first film completely lacking in the second. The simplicity of striving to ascend beyond your environs, being unsatisfied with your drone-like station, and feeling through to the intuitive emotions beneath symbols is not new. In the Matrix the idea was for the first time actualized with such intensity as to brand its sense of awareness on a generation.
All of this has disintegrated in the successive film and what replaces is it does not please me. The constant incestuous relationships hinted at between computer systems, waking and unconscious persons, Freudian/Jungian psychology breakdowns, doesn't make for inspiration. I feel what it breaks down into is what are your personal views on reality, the nature thereof, and the psyche. Personally in my life, I've gone from being a christian conservative republican in high school-to atheist-to essential mix of beliefs green as moss liberal in my twenty something years. I truly chalk up my dissatisfaction, in the wake of this new film, to my general disagreement with its passage into complication and shedding of a beautiful base in eastern philosophy and current views on a holographic universe.
The nature of redundancy gives rise in me the disturbance of an MC Escher piece without the beauty of smooth design and care. I do see the whole yin-yang- Smith-Anti Christ=Neo Christ thing, the doubt of peeking insanity within the discovery, but it does nothing for me still, upon reflection. I half to admit to all you folks-the week before I saw Reloaded, I indulged for the first time
- altered -, a viewing on a big screen TV, one of my favorite films, Linklater's "Walking Life". So perhaps my experience w/Reloaded was set for dissapointment.

-The idea that thinks of itself is far from new, and most definitely been laid in prettier pattern.-

Did you bother to read the posts in this thread?

i agree with you grandolepotty, that the simple yet profound sort of christ in buddhist clothing parable of the orignal matrix makes for a clearer, more universal message. And in the end thats what what make the original a hands down classic like Empire while Reloaded is sort of like a Return of The Jedi. Bigger, more expensive, more expansive, but with less heart. But I still think that it is far from sucking and meaningless which is what a lot of people in this thread have been arguing. In the end it was a solid action flick with a healthy dose of what I believe was truly though-provoking philosophy. But then again, I've never studied that stuff, and I'm sure it's pretty basic in the end, probably like a freshman seminar on freedom and choice. So maybe it's a little more boring to you. I also think, though, that some people just didn't try hard enough to get it and will be smacking their foreheads when the third movie ties together a lot of the loose ends...

uh, yeah, i think i read most of them, did i do something wrong? too repetive? sorry...

No, you didn't do anything wrong; it just seemed like most of the things you mentioned in your post had been mentioned earlier.

What are the best theories about what happens to former agent Smith? And what is his purpose in the matrix now?

He has no purpose as he says to Mr. Anderson before the huge fight. He is an exiled program. His purpose in the whole movie is most likely the deciding factor in if the humans succeed or not because he is the abnormality in this "matrix"

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Boards don't hit back

This film was nothing like what i expected. NOTHING.

At first this bothered me when i got out...wasnt a huge fan of it.

But after discussing the film for about an hour, the film was getting better and better once i had thought about it! I hadnt had that feeling from a film in a long long time!

The best thing, without a doubt, about Reloaded is the story. I had no idea the story would take a turn like that, and for me, it made Reloaded the best film of the year so far and has cemented itself in the "Must watch over and over again" section of my Must-have dvd collection.

A Mindblowing, brainf*ck of a film.

P.S This is the best review post ive ever seen for a film on this site, some excellant posts and explanations/interpretations. Well Done!

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Pumpkins scream in the DEAD of night!

Okay, here is the mild epiphany I had when I was leaving the theater having just watched the Matrix Reloaded; There are two matrices! This is evident in the conversation that Neo had with the Architect. The Architect told Neo that Neo had five predecessors and that Zion had been destroyed five times and that they were getting quite proficient at it. Neo is the sixth of his kind! Now, the Architect in this conversation talked about the current version of the matrix and how there was a 1% fallout among the humans. 99% accepted the matrix programming, and 1% did not. The 1 percenters were the free people of Zion who fought to free other minds and to destroy the matrix. The Architect told Neo that this kind of dissention was quite dangerous and they had to be dealt with. Neo, the prophesied ONE was supposed to go through the other door and restart the second matrix, and pick was it 20? People to restart Zion? This second matrix was designed as a waste system to deal with the one percenters. This system is restarted ever so often and the parameters by which this happens is called the "Prophecies" The freed humans are not really free at all. It is an illusion brought on by the second matrix. The ONE was supposed to follow the parameters/prophecies and restart the waste system, cleaning out the ruckus, once the first matrix had lost so many individuals. Neo was different, however. He was in love with Trinity. He was not compelled to save the general human populace; he was concerned with saving her. The final proof for a second matrix is seen when Neo and his friends are running from the sentinels. Neo stops, feels them, and shatters them in mid-air. He had awakened more fully to the second matrix. We see Neo waking very slowly through out the film while he is in the second matrix. He begins to sense people and have dreams. At the point of the sentinels He fully interacts with the second matrix. He feels them like he feels people in the first matrix. I bet when he wakes from the coma, He'll see stuff in code, just like in the other matrix. There were a lot more connections in the movie, but I'll have to watch it again if I want to see them. It makes more sense with the titles now. "Reloaded" is about the attempt to reload the second matrix, and "Revolutions" will be about breaking out of the second matrix. There was another thing as well. The story in the first matrix about the creation of AI talked about machines being able make choices, becoming sentient. This movie, Reloaded, was also about choices. At the point where Neo was supposed to enter the door to reload the system, Neo became sentient, and made a choice. I think right now all the humans are programmed how to function. That’s how the decisions are already made and the prophecies always come true. Each person playing his or her part to complete the cycles needed to run the energy for the machines, (which even though are shown in the second matrix, might be the truth. This would be within the programming of the second matrix to give a version of truth, without actual reality.) It was just like on Earth when all the machines did exactly what they were supposed to do, running and doing what they had to do to complete whatever task was at hand. But then, Choice was made and the system was revolutionized. Now here, in the sixth cycle of the second matrix, Neo a human endowed with special programming and great freedom to accomplish the parameters/prophecies makes a choice, becomes sentient, and will revolutionize the system. Cool huh?

(note: this really all came to me in like five minutes right after the movie. I really do have a life and I did not, repeat, did not spend nights philosophizing on this.)

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"You must unlearn what you have learned." -Yoda

I'm not going to get into the deep philisophical (if thats how its spelt) side of da new Matrix film, but i do think that action wise this film was alot better than the original. Once bullet time was introduced back in 1999 there have been many, MANY cheap tacky crapy imitations, so i was SO happy when i saw ReLoaded and saw that the Waks.Bros and Mr. Ping showed the whole movie industry AGAIN how to create a proper action/fight sequence. I think that the car chase sequence was da greatest ever seen before EVER! and i would like any one to disagree to give some valid reasons. And the whole Neo vs 10000Smiths was bootiful, and i liked da humour
Smith-"Me, me, me, me"
Smith-"Me too"

However, to generalise what alot of people have kinda said, the sub text to this movie (da whole philosphy thing) and from my point of view da whole impact of the film, was definatly not as great as the original. I dont think that the films story and sub-plot should be criticised too much yet, not until Reveloutions has been released and all has been made clear, but as a single movie it was choppy and didnt have the flow or consistant narrative the first one had. and yeah da whole rave scene was quite random and Morpheus speech, why was he speakin/shoutin like that?
Impact wise it never could be as great as the original, the Matrix was a huge eye opener for me to alot of things that as a 15/16 year old when i first saw it totally blew my mind, plus da cool fight scenes.

I thought Reloaded was great, not as good as the original, but still a fokin good film, and has da potential to be a real deep film with da arrival of Revolutions. And to anyone who is hating on da film already, i dont think u should consider tha film as just one movie but as a whole with Revolutions when it comes out.

Also i think da whole Animatrix and comic book series on da website is also particulary awsome, da sheer depth of the whole Matrix world is amazing, and Reloaded was a real cool glimpse into that world. I think the mark of a good book/film when you feel that the writter/director knows absolutly everything about the world which they are writing about and every character has there own lives/backgrounds, and in the case of the Wachovskis this is definatly true as they have seemed to has skipped no detail.

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"If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face!"

I rekon Horshach is spot on, how else can u explain Neo being able to use his bullet stopping powers on the sentinals in the "real" world