Of X2 and Reloaded, Matrix is clearly the better comic book film

Rating: 4/10 (10 July 2003)

So many rave reviews that I just have to add my bit, cause frankly : I *didn't* like it.
Okay, so Matrix was not adapted from a comic book. Still, it is clearly a comic-book film : exact same style, approach, feel and substance. It *could have been a comic*, and a good one at that! Another thing : I never was a fan of the original X-Men comic. Then again, ol' Supes or Batman never gave me shivers either, and still I loved the first Superman and Batman movies, so that don't mean a thing.
So : what's so wrong with this movie? Well, basically, I think it's just... DUMB. Yeah, that's the word : dumb! The scenario, and everybody in it is just so dumb it makes you cry. Hell, with prof. X's supapowers and Cerebro, I'd have fixed the Magneto problem in no time! Being Magneto and having co-designed the thing, I would have killed all those pesky norms in a sec too (which it is clearly able to do according to the film)! And then the army guy... with an asset like Mastermind, couldn't he really think of a more, well, intelligent way of fighting the mutants? Well of course, he *is* an army dude so maybe that's asking too much. And then the regular guys, like in the scene where Pyro blows up a load of cop cars, "You heard about those big bad mutants guys?"-style : being one of the soldiers, I would go like, "**BANG** - Yeah, I heard. I also heard most of you guys aren't BULLET PROOF!!!".
That's one more thing : haven't they invented the gun yet in the X-Men universe? Most of the mutants are not power-protected in any way from bullets (except when Magneto's around of course), still none of them ever seems to think of wearing some Kevlar, let alone a *gun*. So, okay, I know it might have been a problem in the comic because of CCA regulations, but still, couldn't they have changed that for the movie just to make it less dumb? It would change the whole dynamic of the thing.
So, are there qualities redeeming the lack of basic intelligence throughout the movie? Not many... most of Wolverine's dry humor is gone, and Wolverine as a character seems less interesting than in the first X (though this does not seem to be a problem with the acting - see below). The fight scenes are just boring, sometimes even offensively so (Deathstryke could have killed Wolverine a thousand times in that fight, and still she lost it in the lamest manner imaginable - what a bummer). The other action scenes don't get a lot better (that plane chase for instance - there were a thousand ways they could have made that one tons more exciting than by just using YASP, Yet Another SuperPower).
The acting is very good for some, awful for others. Ian McKellen shines, as always : I bet he could even make a Coca Cola ad look exciting. Patrick Stewart also does a very good job at it - he really CAN do something more than Trek, and I really look forward to seeing him in better fares than this. And Hugh Jackman is still a good Wolverine, though he didn't get half the chances to show it that he got in the first movie. Even Romijn-Stamos did a pretty good job, a lot better than in the previous film. The rest of the acting though ranged from the simply lame to the excruciatingly bad. Nightcrawler made me crawl up the walls, but not in the funny way it was clearly intended.
And finally, there is the whole soap-factor : who isn't having an affair with whom in this movie? I remember this being one of the things that hit my crap-o-meter in the comics too - but just because it's crap that's in the comic, that don't mean you have to keep that crap for the movie!
All in all, I feel like this movie could have been a lot better, which is a pity. I had a negative feeling about the first X movie as well, but the more I thought about it and the more I saw it, the better it became. In the end, it finished about side-by-side with the original Matrix movie. X2 started out as just boring in my book, however : it only got worse each time I thought back about it, and the second sitting of it was just torture.
This movie will be a must for lovers of the X-Men comic as it quite faithfully reproduces its feel, all of the crap in the original books included. For those who do not fall into that category however, go see Reloaded, or if you have already, go see it a second time : you will be the better for it.