Great Visuals, Bad Story

Rating: 6/10 (14 May 2003)

The first time I saw The Matrix I didn't really care for it, but as I watched it again and thought about it more, the more I liked it. Unlike most comic book movies, you don't have to take the amazing stunts with an unbelievable pill because they are done in the constructs of a computer program where these characters are merely reprogramming the rules. That concept was cool even if it was ripped off from any Cyberpunk novel/story ever written. (Does anyone else think it is funny that Keanu was in Johnny Mnemonic?)
The bad thing is that I am already having the exact opposite reaction to Reloaded. I watched it and kept thinking "WOW, COOL!" but in retrospect, some of the CGI was obvious in stunts, there is too much of a reliance on a 'deus ex machina' resolution to events, and I kept expecting the Stay Pufft Marshmallow Man to appear every time they talked about the Key Maker. In the end, I felt Reloaded set up Revolutions to be a bomb. The Wachowskis and Silver are adding layers to the Matrix itself but are making it so cumbersome that you just want to say that there has to be reality at some level, but you never find it.
Several continuity errors between films jumped out at me, but I'll let you discover them for yourselves. All in all, it was a slightly above average sci-fi action flick that I'm afraid will become cliched to the point that one day we'll be seeing this on MST5K or whatever incarnation of that show may still be around in 20 years.