catapult magazine

catapult magazine
 

discussion

Matrix

Default

Adam
Sep 11 2008
12:38 pm

Just saw it tonight, and I want to post now before I have too much time to think about it. If you haven’t seen it, just don’t read anymore. Come on, stop reading. I mean it. Stop now. You’re not stopping . . . Okay, last chance, I’m going to start the next paragraph.

I can’t remember the last time I thoroughly enjoyed a mega-movie as much as this one. First, of all, can we skip the myriads of comparisons to the first one? For once we have a story that was meant to be told in three parts (though LOTR falls under that category as well), and the second part doesn’t compare to the first because it shouldn’t. It isn’t trying to be, because it’s got a story to tell, rather than a reputation to live up to.

For once, a really hip and stylized movie didn’t make me want to barf. I really don’t think it was a movie about leather, explosions, kung fu, and big studly one-liners from Neo et al. But . . . since we’re at the cinema and we’ve come for an action flick to escape reality for a couple of hours, why not stick all that stuff in if you know how to use it? What validated all of that stuff, for me, was that the movie had other things to balance it. I really liked the fact that I left the cinema not knowing where they’re going with the story.

I don’t think the plot was as amazing as wanted it to be, but the themes and questions it raised were great. It gave a little more ambiguity to the spiritual dimension, which is refreshing to me. If I could sum up the shortcomings in my eyes, it would be that the action sequences took precedence over character development. They could easily have made this a 4 1/2 hour movie, but it seemed that instead they did a little bit of extra packing, which shortchanged the plot and the characters a wee bit.

What did you folks think of the rave/sex scene? I kind of liked it. At first I thought it was going to be the token soft-core porn that ends up in so many blockbusters to keep the hornier part of the population coming back to see the movie again. But in the end I thought it was a vivid, joyful celebration, tastefully shot.

Okay, I’ll shut up now. But I REALLY wanna hear what everyone else thought (since I assume everyone on the planet is going to be seeing this movie some time or another).

p.s. There’s a great (and long) review at Salon.com.