The Matrix Retarded (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (1 December 2005)

The second instalment of the Matrix trilogy takes all the excitement and energy of the first and flushes it completely down the toilet. In its place you're given turgid politics, ludicrous amounts of pseudo-philosophy and an unconvincing romance. It finally becomes clear that the Matrix has disappeared up the Wachowskis' arses.
But what's most criminal of all is that the action is dull. After all, I'm not one of these sad teenagers that give a damn above the 'mythology' of The Matrix or the crappy philosophy. I have no desire to dress up like a knob and wear sunglasses indoors while practising bedroom kung fu. All I want is a decent story and some decent action. But instead you get a moronic story and lacklustre action.
The most hyped piece of action is the car chase. Supposedly it was going to be the best car chase of all-time. It was going to change our attitude to cinema. Instead what you get is a bit of gun firing and one or two cars flying up in the air. It's the sort of thing you've seen in millions of films before, and often done much better than it is here. And as for being the 'Greatest Car Chase of All-Time', don't make me laugh. You'd have to be a moron to think that it could stand up to The French Connection or Bullit or Ronin. I even prefer the car chase in The Rock and I hate that sequence. I mean, at least it has the absurd zoom in, zoom out camera trick to fuel my rage. Here I was just apathetically shrugging my shoulders.
The only decent bit of the car chase was the Ducati. What a beautiful bike. Oh, and Moss isn't a bad bike either. Seriously, all that money spent on special effects and your eyes still gravitate to an Italian bike and a woman's arse.
But much worse than the car chase, which I'm merely apathetic to, was the fighting. Sweet Jesus the fight scenes were dull. All they consist of is a bit of flying about and tons of blocking. It's rare that anyone lands a punch. It's like they're playing Patty Cake. And most of the time the action serves no purpose. There's one bit where Neo (why does it always sound to me like people are addressing him as Neil? "You're the one Neil") fights hundreds of Agent Smiths. They fly about a bit and do tons more blocking. Occasionally someone lands a punch but then when the person goes flying into all the Agents you get an absurd ten-pin blowing noise. But then after this rubbish computer graphics demonstration, Neo just flies off. So what the hell was the point? I think the answer is a couple of sentences back. It's just to show off what the computer geeks can do. "Hundreds of Agent Smiths? That would be so kewl!" Sod the fact that the action has no consequences or that it does nothing to help drive the narrative forward. It's empty grandstanding and empty padding.
Another dull action scene is the one where Neo fights lots of henchman in some French bloke's house. The turgid fighting is there but Neo can also stop bullets in midair. How can you care about someone that's invincible  especially someone that's both invincible and dull?
One of the most unintentionally funny Neo scenes is where he has to kiss Monica Bellucci. Apparently she has to suffer being with some dull French bloke (who bores the audience to death in one of the million half-witted dialogue scenes) so she wants him to kiss her like he kisses Trinity. It's hilarious the way Reeves enters the Shatner school of acting. He looks at her and you can almost hear his thoughts, "Kiss? IIdon't understand. It'sillogical." But of course the reason that the scene's in the film is so that fanboys can soil their pants with fantasies of a quality of woman they'll never touch in a million years.
Which brings me to the sex scene in the film. What a load of rubbish. You get more erotic movement out of an earthworm. And what kind of man is Neo? He almost cries when he comes. Although, having said that, the drums that play during the rave would probably make me cry too. All the party needed were whistles and glow sticks.
But you see, the reason that sensitive, caring Neo gets emotional, is because he's worried about Trinity. Even though the two have no chemistry whatsoever. And just to show what an idiot he is, he chooses saving her over saving the world. How selfish can you get?
But worse than the action, the sex, the sub-Stargate SG1 politics, the horrendous dialogue, the half-assed philosophy and the bad CGI (CGI Neo is just as unconvincing as the flesh and blood Neo) is the scene with The Architect. Nonsense dialogue gushes from his mouth, dialogue that in a deep and meaningful way is supposed to bring fresh revelations about The Matrix (there's talk of 'The Source' and other 'The Ones' and rebooting) but instead of being a speech on the nature of freedom of choice and all that jazz (if he's the Wachowski's idea of god, then god is more of a tool than I previously thought), it's merely a convoluted B-movie way of getting the hero to choose between saving the world and the girl. Of course Neo chooses the girl. Ergo, he's exactly the same as every hero out there. He loves his girl more than humanity. Idiot.