> Come on, other people post. I'm bored.

Ok.

Here's my executive review:

Fighting Scenes: Good
Chase Scene(s): Excellent
Talky Bits: Awful
Dance Scene: WTF???

Ok, now I spoil.

I didn't hate the movie like my girlfriend did. I'm more toward's Stephen's side on this one, but I thought the Endless Agent Smith To Infinity fight went on a little long (considering, as others have pointed out, Neo could have flown out of there and ended it AT ANY TIME). Yes, there were some great individual bits in that fight. But mostly it was just visual overload, and was too much for me.

I actually liked the Neo-fights-the-french-dudes-henchmen fight more, because it didn't have seven billion baddies, and the baddies didn't all look the same, and there were more weapons. But I also agree it ran a tad long (like almost all the fights in the movie).

My favorite fight in the movie though, bar none, is the Morpheus vs Agent fight on top of the 18 wheeler. The reasons why every bit of this fight worked and pretty much all the other fights in the movie left something to be desired are:

1) It didn't go on too long.
2) It was mofo MORPHEUS.
3) Morepheus is not SuperNeo. When he takes on an Agent, there's, you know, TENSION. Because before SuperNeo, NOBODY fought Agents, they just ran. That Morpheus holds his own against an Agent for so long is really really really cool.
4) You know if Morepheus falls off the 18 wheeler and gets run over, he isn't just going to rewind time and jump back up or something equally stupid, like SuperNeo might. See number 3 re: TENSION
5) Katanas and pistols just GO TOGETHER. It's like, I dunno, chocolate and peanut butter!
6) Did I mention it's MOFO MORPHEUS?

The entire chase sequence on the freeway is a total masterpiece. I can't think of anything about that sequence that I didn't love.

However, I had to continually remind myself during the movie that what I was watching was basically a Hong Kong chop-socky flick crossed with Alice in Wonderland. If I didn't keep telling myself that, there would have been two points where I would have given up all thoughts of the movie being good. The first scene was the pre-Oracle scene where Neo fights the Chinese dude, and at the end the Chinese dude utters the line "You don't really know someone until you fight them." I almost spit Coke all over myself at that stupid line, or would have, had I had a Coke at the time.

The second was the Keymaker intro scene, where they bust through that door to find this little old asian dude with an old key grinder sitting alone in a tiny room. Again, I spit my mythical Coke all over the place at that moment. For the first scene I had to tell myself "Ok, think of it as a Hong Kong flick" and for the second scene I had to say "Ok, think of it like Alice in Wonderland." Those two thoughts, at various times, managed to get me through the movie with positive spirits.

But man, either the Wachowskis are going to deliver something amazing in the third movie to pay-off all that philosophical mumbo-jumbo, or they're just going to crank up the fights and chases and handwave furiously past the philosophy. I can't think of any other way for them to finish it off. I love Morepheus, but whenever he opens his mouth in this movie it's to say something either obvious, nonsensical, or to remind everyone that he has faith.

My favorite bit of diologue, though, was the bit where the Keymaker basically admits that he's just a nonsensical tool of the plot when he tells everyone "I'm here because I have to be here." The unspoken part of that line was "to keep the plot of this movie moving forwards." Also, the Oracle has a pretty good line with "We're all here to do what we're all here to do." Great. THANKS. The bit where she tells Neo he can only see the decisions he understands was interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling because things end up different than how he saw them anyway.

Anyway, I suppose I've blathered enough for now. Maybe I'll post more later when I've had time to ruminate further. In closing, I'd just like to say that I really hope that the next movie doesn't get renamed "Matrix Dance Dance Revolutions".

-- Dave


P.S. A cool Morpheus scene for the third movie would be to have him walking somwhere purposefully, trip and fall flat on his face--refusing, of course, to take his arms from behind his back to break his fall--then get up with a bloody nose and intone "I was destined to do that."