Well, if that's it

Rating: 3/10 (20 January 2007)

23 minutes into the movie (of which I expected nothing much more than a climax on all planes to the three movies) we've got a lost plot getting back on it's rails, scores of incredibly bad lines remarkably similar in niveau to the new star wars parts and perfectly reminiscent of a bad action movie à la lundgren or seagal, an overdose of special effects unnecessarily cut into stroboscopic sequences, silly gun battles worth of a budget first person shooter, and worst of all : the coolness of the characters portrayed so well in the first part is so unbelievable they remind me of hiphopgangsta-wannabees in the streets. Everything in me screams for fast forward, but I suppose I've got to sit through it. Hindsight is probably better: The acting of Keanu Reeves reminds me of "Johnny Mnemonic", which is,well, not on my hit list at all. The only real highlight is Hugo Weavings masterclass bad-guy acting and it is far and few in between. Monica Belluci obviously was casted for her, er, looks. The Music score is discussable, and in some parts I do not at all agree with their underlining of the film, especially the pathos for some really unnecessary lines and scenes. The ongoing plot is predictable and in between bad lines nothing astonishing happens. I'd go as far as to say that some scenes are capable of starring in Plan 9 from outer space, line-wise. The movie seems to be overtly "inspired" from a whole score of other movies, same genre or not. May this be a homage to better movies. All in all they set out to revolutionize films with the Matrix trilogy, but IMHO just the first would have done just right for that, part two and especially three don't really live up to the bar set. The Wachowski brothers showed that they can write good movie adaptions with "V for Vendetta", but here they just leave space for wishful thinking.