Great film, awesome fights, small flaws.

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2003)

I was lucky enough to see this film last night, as I really enjoyed the first film and was interested to see where the Wachowski's would take it all next.
Needless to say, this is a great film and I liked it a lot.
If seeing the film is putting the red pill in your mouth, seeing it the second time will be swallowing it.
Okay, so it's the Matrix and it's cool. But beyond that the story extends what we already know about the Matrix and to a certain extent plays with it's own rules which makes it all at once the same and yet a different film to the first.
The fight scenes are awesome. If Keanu was a dabbler in the martial arts in the first film he's a true master in this. The bad guys really are trying to stick sharp unnatural things in him - how did they make it look so real? You can see
Keanu's effort and concentration sometimes, and this is Mr Reeves we're talking about, Mr Keanu critic, so is he acting it?
The central trio of Neo, Morpheus and Trinity are given more room to breathe, and I think make for an interesting dynamic. Hugo Weaving as Smith must have
had a blast shooting his scenes, and it's great to see the script stay on the right side of parodying itself before anyone else does. It also is unashamed in it's celebration of itself - at a point where some key characters are saved by
another, I wanted to holler out "YES!" at the top of my lungs, but my British reserve prevented me. Luckily another character in the film did it for me - cheers Link.
This is not to say the film does not have it's small flaws. Most disturbing are two scenes of plain old weirdness, which to my mind are the Wachowski's "adult
Manga" sessions coming through - or it's my British reserve making me feel
uncomfortable. Also a key conversation towards the end of the film is so loaded with references to everything that the Matrix is, was and will ever be is just to much for my brain to take in in one sitting, so I need to go and see it again.
I just need some water to help the pill go down, that's all. Wait a sec, the bottle says that adults should take two red. Maybe I'll have three. Just to be sure.