"Bound" must have been a fluke

Rating: Null/10 (31 March 2002)

Mild spoilers ahead.
I remain astounded that this film was such a success. It does have a couple of good scenes, but what it mostly demonstrates is an appalling lack of understanding of science, narrative, direction, and action. I was bored out of my mind during most of it and wouldn't have expected it to do any better than "Lost in Space".
The effects in this movie are sometimes impressive (although nothing new) but generally senseless. The choreography -- by the legendary Yuen Woo Ping -- is good by US standards, but tired and pedestrian by, say, Yuen-Woo-Ping standards. The actors spent a couple of months learning their moves, and it shows -- they can pose, but they can't really fight very well.
The wirework is clumsy and exaggerated. The shootouts are ridiculously excessive, like parodies of John Woo's already intentionally hyperbolic style. It's in the same league as the action in "Mortal Kombat 2". I watch a lot of action movies, and "The Matrix" has to be in the bottom 20% for action.
The 'science' in this science-fiction movie is utter, utter crap. Quite possibly the worst I've ever seen, and that includes Godzilla movies. The movie would be vastly improved by the removal of every line of exposition that 'explains' what's going on.
The story stumbles around inconsistently, without sense, stable structure, or pacing, as if a number of unfinished scripts were crudely glommed together. Cliches fall from the screen like crap from a flock of starlings. The white reluctant hero is guided by not one but two black characters who are wiser and more competent but can't do anything themselves (because the script only lets white characters be effective). The ebb and flow of action has all the subtlety of a bad comic book from the mid-1970's. If you die in a dream, you die in real life. Puh-leeze. Try coming up with something interesting.
But worst of all is the complete failure of vision. The characters do all kinds of amazing things when they're practicing for their missions in the Matrix, but when they're actually there, they fail to use their incredible abilities. It's like a Superman movie where he beats the villain by arguing with him instead of flying about and so on. Why couldn't we at least have gotten a chase scene where the characters run and jump from the top of one skyscraper to the next?
If you want to see an actually good movie that deals with the same theme but has originality, genuinely unusual and impressive special effects, a coherent and engaging storyline, strong direction, and real vision, try "Dark City". It's everything "The Matrix" wanted to be -- except for the kung fu, which "The Matrix" doesn't get right anyway -- and much, much more.
Compared to "The Matrix", "Tron" is a masterpiece. But, then, so are a lot of films.