Sophomore slump

Rating: 4/10 (29 July 2004)

In the old days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and rock and roll came on large black plastic discs and was not just a profit generating engine for conglomerates, the wise would know better than to buy the second album of any group or artist just because they liked the first album. Because the group or artist had spent their whole lives getting to the point where they had that first album in them, but that second album came out a year later and they just didn't have that much new to say in that time, in most cases.

Well, that goes double for this turkey. Watching it made me realize
1) just how much of the enjoyability of the first Matrix came from the novelty of both the concept and the execution
2) that cynically tacking on a love story to appeal to the women who wouldn't like the straight action and/or science fiction of a guy flick is a surefire way to stop the momentum of your movie like a brick wall and ruin it for everybody (see also Star Wars II Attack of the Clones, compare to The Road Warrior's avoiding that error)
3) that I do realize after all why some people don't like Keanu Reeves as an actor, after years of my defending him (weakly)
4) that you can just switch elderly black women in the middle of a series when the last one whom you cast dies, and nobody will notice
5) that we need a constitutional amendment banning insertion of a big community barn dance number in what should be a tense spare film about a small intense band trying to save humanity against enormous odds and constantly looking over their shoulders to see who's going to catch a bullet next so that maybe they can at least save their mission if not themselves.
Big mistake, that whole 'Zion' concept. Stinkeroo. You don't see the Terminator folks putting that into their series. Were they trying to win the loyalty of Zionists (joke)?