if only I'd had lower expectations

Rating: 7/10 (15 May 2003)

Right off the bat, I should make it clear, that this is a really good movie.
Now, that said, I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd expected; which is pretty understandable Granted that my expectations were higher for this movie than any other movie ever.
If you've read much about this film, like say, the entire May issue of Wired, then you can't help but have high expectations; especially for the fx. The trick to this movie was to surpass the fx levels of the previous movie. Since they'd already done bullet-time (and believe me, they still do), they had to go one step further. Sadly, this step was CG. Really, the most notable part is the sequence in the movie known as the "burly brawl." This scene has Neo fighting off dozens of Agent Smiths. The whole scene, save for some close face shots, was done with CG. The goal here, to surpass the fx of the previous film, was to make the CG as seamless as possible. And here, they fail. Now maybe I'm just nit picking here, but man...again with the expectations.
Aside from the "burly brawl," there are still a few other flaws. The first half hour or so of the movie isn't overly eventful. There's this rave'esque scene in the caves of Zion that takes place while Neo and Trinity are getting their "groove" on, which seems rather pointless. And honestly, not only could they have gone without it, but it might have brought the MPAA rating down to PG-13 had they gone done so. Lawrence Fishburne's acting seemed a little canned at times; especially when delivering the speech that takes place right before the crazy Zion dance.
That's it though; those are really the only major flaws. The rest of the movie is amazing, if not thoroughly stunning at times. The second half of the movie makes up significantly for the flaws in the first half. The storyline starts to get rather deep, and you need to be thinking in order to grasp everything (definitely a repeat watcher). And as you may have ready by now, this movie is really only half of a movie. The movie gets are far as it needs to go and literally ends with the words "To be concluded" on the screen. Thankfully, we only have to wait six months for the conclusion. I urge everyone to stick it out through the credits at the end of the film, as there is a short but worth it teaser for Matrix Revolution at the end.
Having spent time to thinking about and writing this, I wish I could go back and give it an eight or a nine. Maybe I was dwelling on the flaws too much when I only gave it a seven.