21st Century Empire Strikes Back, But.......

Rating: Null/10 (15 May 2003)

I saw it last night, and I must say, watching the first 40 minutes started to remind me of The Empire Strikes Back. Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity are the new Luke, Leia, and Han Solo, with Morpheus doing double duty as a New-Age Obi-Wan. Zion was what I expected, dark and beautiful. I liked the gathering/love scene. It came off like the people of Zion felt, "Aye, if we are going to bite it, might as well have some fun."
Now for the not so good news. There are scenes were the much-hyped CGI FXs are at times wonderful, but at times Stevie Wonder could see the difference. The big fight scene between Neo and the Agent Smith clones was decent, but you could also tell were CGI came in and real Neo left off. There were also times that I thought I was watching Luke Skywalker, and everybody who saw the film knows what I mean.
And then, there was the story. Some of the dialog was nice. It gave a me a feeling of interesting character dynamics at work. The tension between characters was defined at times, but, some of the plot points will leave you looking for your own Oricle to ask her, "what the hell does that mean?" And, the final dialog scene between Neo and a certain character will need more than one viewing to get the meaning of.
All in all, it was a very good effort, but, I think the brothers W thought more about big action in spots, and left the viewer hanging with long-winded explanations. *** out of 5.