>If, when they find the Keymaker in Matrix II, you and your friend both look at each other and say "Are you the Gatekeeper?" then congratulations, you are a geek.

I totally did that. And I still, when talking about the movie, have to say, "The Keymast-- I mean -maker."

Nearly everybody I've talked to or heard from had the same feelings about the movie, myself included. So I won't repeat those. What I found surprising about the movie, beyond the obvious, is that it was so utterly entertaining. It seems like it's been a long time since a movie came out that I got so much sheer enjoyment out of. This really hit me during the conversation with the Merovingian, who I thought was hilarious.

I remember overhearing (probably on this board, probably from Sam) anxiety about Mr. Reeves's role. Something to the effect of, "the first movie worked out great for him because all he had to do was look confused most of the time, but this one may require some acting, or at least appearance of competence, which could cause difficulties." Given the natural limitations of Mr. Reeves's talents, I thought it came off rather well. The "confused" look, behind sunglasses, passes for a "steely determination/I have a plan about which I'm going to be cryptic" look. The sunglasses were very much turned to Mr. Reeves's advantage. Add this to the scenes where he *was* actually confused, and the scenes where he was kicking all kinds of butt and therefore had no need for expression, and he managed to not disgrace himself. I can imagine that the movie might take on new layers if they actually had an actor in the lead role, but to me it didn't detract. The only time I noticed how weak he is was in the first scene where he talks with Mr. Smith, and that was Hugo Weaving's fault for being so brilliant.

As for the philosophy, I'm at a point in my life where I just kick back my heels and smile when someone tries to bring up a determinism/free will debate, so I rather enjoyed it. I will be mildly interested to see where they actually come down on the question.

Finally, if the last couple of scenes mean that there is a meta-Matrix, as I am inclined to suspect they do, where does it end? If they leave us at the end with no way of figuring out when we have stopped going through layered Matrices and landed in the real world, I will be displeased.

Lire"and yay for white Rasta ghost twins"lyn