feelings of disappointment

Rating: 3/10 (16 May 2003)

OVERHYPED. TOO MUCH TALKING AND IRRELEVANT SCENES. BAD DIALOGUE. ACTION SCENES TOO LONG.
maybe it was just hyped up too much. it was inevitable. the hollywood hype machine. the animatrix movies. the video games. the trailers. whatever it was, i was sorely disappointed.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!
I think what made the first movie work was lack of expectations (I had gone in thinking it would be another Johnny Mnemonic!) and the whole revelation/discovery process as the secret of the Matrix was revealed. That's what made the whole movie so enjoyable. Also, at that time, Hollywood had not been inundated with HK-Style kung-fu acrobatics in every friggin movie. It was one of the first U.S.-produced films with such a major emphasis on HK-style wire-work theatrics. Cool! flying dudes shooting in slow motion while doing cartwheels! Secondly, the crux of the movie was simple and straightforward.
I think during the time after the 1st movie and these other films, the Wachakowski (sp?) brothers just had to really flesh out the whole story line of what was going on with the Matrix and how it became and all this other stuff that had to go into the sequels. They probably had to work backwards, and really did not what to write except to come up with inane, run-of-the-mill sci-fi TV Movie material.
Frankly, I did not care anymore, after the 1st 45 minutes almost put me to sleep. It was just a bunch of gibberish about nuclear reactors and Zion and the 6 others before Neo, and the Keymaster, and renegade agents, and (sigh)love...I mean, I think of myself as a relative intelligent guy, but I found myself falling asleep through the 1st half of the movie. I could not understand what the heck they were doing? Call me a dumb movie goer, or maybe the producers just wanted the film to be confusing so that the average moviegoer would have to see the movie 3 times....but it was just waaay too trying to explain everything.
The second most boring part of the movie was during the Architect scene. I mean, that guy was going on for like 20 minutes. I noticed people int he audience around me dozing off, and just looking at their watches. Maybe for the hardcore fanboys, SF fans, this was a big story revelation time, but the general summer-movie enthusiast, this dragged on waaay too long. I didn't care anymore.
Another pet peeve I have. Keanu's fight scenes were pretty lame when he wasn't using weapons. His kicks and punches were so choreographed and looked so weak, I doubt he could have hurt a fly with those fists.
I have to say the weapons fighting scene and the highway car chases were the high points of the film. They were worth my 10 bucks.

Some other weak scenes. What was with that Club MTV raving scene? Is that a rule of Zion? That only good-looking, twenty-something, sweaty hot attractive people are allowed in the city? I almost equated this scene with the Ewoks celebration scenes in Return of the Jedi, before the big battle. Waste of film. Another weak scene: Neo manually pumping Trinity's heart?! What th-?! I also thought Neo would do his Superman thing and fly around the Earth to make it spin backwards and rewind time to before she died! DUMB!

Man, now i am getting annoyed at myself for getting so excited for this originally! What was I thinking!?