Someone PLEASE criticize Matrix 2 and 3 intelligently...
 

I'm getting SO frustrated with some people about Matrix 2 and 3. Dialouge tends to go like this.
"I hated the second and third movies!"
"Why?"
"Well it wasn't the first! It didn't have the same action involved."
"Have you even SEEN them? Between Neo/Multi-smiths and the freeway, and the Battle of the Dock, the climactic (albeit Dragon Ball Z ish) Neo/Smith fight..."
"Well they just threw in more characters to try and make it interesting. I mean what was with the Merovengian?"
"No, they didn't 'throw in' more characters, they expanded the Matrix story into Zion and conscious people in the Matrix itself...and the Merovengian was there to act as sort of a link between the Matrix and the Machine world so they could get what they needed. Although, they COULD have just had them get the Keymaker without the whole scene thus removing plot development, a linking to the third movie, and the freeway chase itself."
"Well I don't like the religious subtext in it."
"...."

This is happening more and more.

My opinion is that it was a movie that entertained me and had enough of a plot to get from A to B rationally. The plot made sense and connected (except for how Neo blasted himself into the Train Station, but hey, you can't win em all). Just like how Shigueru Miyamoto will make his own God damn Zelda game the way Shigueru Miyamoto wanted to, the Wachowski brothers finished their movies the way they wanted and I liked it enough see it again.

So now I extend a plea. Your thoughts on both of the movies, what you thought was wrong, and if you think they sucked, WHY? I want to understand, I really do....but I have yet to hear a logical arguement.

The plot was convoluted. It was overly saturated with CGI in unnescessary ways. And the dialogue was confusing.

i LIKED 2. It was everything i liked about the first one (A guy in the dark asking himself "What is the Matrix??" and finding it out), except different. They added rogue programs, the marelvingian, the ghost brothers, the arcitect. Despite that Neo was GOD and thus, all his fights were stupid, i still felt like i was discovering a world.

3 was just a ton of action cuts with no new plot depth and a whole lot of consentration on secondary characters that i didnt give a shit about. people say "But 3 was just theend fo 2!" wel, the end of 2 sucked, then, and if it was jsut the end of 2, they should have only made 2 movies.

Over did fights, selling sex, emotionless actors, way too weird, weirdest soundtrack ever. there is more I just can't remember, and if you argue then I'll go more in depth.

I think I failed to make my point clear.

Intelligently. As in more than two sentences. Or three. Thank you Darth Zeth for doing what I asked.

I haven't seen 3 yet, but I will comment on 2.

I thought the second one was an ok movie. The action was all good, but where is the famous gunplay that made the original Matrix famous? While taking the story outside of the Matrix was cool, some of the scenes there weren't really needed(the huge party thing? Why the hell is it about 20 minutes long?). I would have liked alittle more than I did if they at least focused on the story alittle more than moving from point A to point B and the characters learning something, but the story staying kind of underdeveloped. Everything else was executed pretty nicely, but it could have been alot better.

Wow, I said all that and I've only seen it once.

Ok more in depth it is, I personly liked the fights but a lot of people thought they were over done so here is a precentige of time spent in two and three: fights 70%, building the "story" 20%, trying to give Neo emotion (including the Zeon Rave/ sex scene) 7%, cool Agent Smith monologes 3% time spent hiding the fact that that Neo can't show emotion 100%. the whole story was a one time wonder type of movie its just a case of making sequels of what shouldn't be made a sequel of.

They weren't bad persay, just not as good as the first. I actually liked them. The only problems I saw were: a.)the pointless sex scene in two, and b.) not enough matrix in three.

The first one only detracts from one part of the movie, so its not that bad. The second one is just wishful thinking, and I shouldn't have put it up there(too lazy to redo the post). There was really no way to put more Matrix into it, b/c Smith was taking it over.

So basically, they aren't bad. Its just when you compare them to the first one that they seem that way.


EDIT: just read through Darth Zeth's post agian, and I have to agree that 3 did just seem like an end for two. It didn't really add anything, it was just a conclusion. I'm not sure that makes it bad however, it was the last movie after all.(If I misinterpreted your post then I apologize)

nah, thats pretty much what i meant. if the third movie was a "conclusion" to 2, then i didnt like the conclusion. i mean, i didnt CARE abtou half the people. That dumb kid with the spoon? the general dud ein the mech? who WERE those people? and the butch chick ad Dozer's wifey? i dont even know their names! But i know Mouse. we CARED about Mouse in the first one.

action? yeah, thats nifty. but the story behind it, and the characters are what really draws you (or rather, me) to a movie. i didn't care about the characters, the story wasn't a story, it was a "conclusion" (but so was Jedi.. but Jedi didn't suck), and the action scenes i DID see didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

i mean, the dock scene? well done, technically.. but confusing and essentially a bunch of special effects that didnt EFFECT me. and the Butch chick and Dozer's wifey running around with a rocket launcher? the "ono we're about to run into the door but the scene is completely suspensless because we have a main character on board who can't die" scene was a yawner. A yawner where Morhpeous' only roll is "what? press this bottun? turn this now? what am i dong? i look cool in my bad ass coat and sunglasses, but shit, im fucking inept whenit comes to co-piloting". the "hey, we can walk on the ceiling for a 2 minute fight scene" was ok (and Morhpeous's ONLY fight that move. lame) but not exciting. The Neo fight at the end left you saying "WTF?".. but was pretty cool anyway. And the "We're flying to the machine city and are getting shot a whole lot and going thru clouds and holy shit we crashed" scene.. that just sucked. i don't want to spoil anything, but seriously, that character's end was a CAR CRASH? a fucking CAR CRASH? lamest death ever.

I have only seen the first and second Matrix movies, not the third, but I would be happy to share my criticism with you.

First of all we have a continuity error between 'The Matrix' and 'Reloaded'. At the end of 'Matrix' Neo was 'The One', meaning that he was omnipotent in the Matrix (if you want to argue how he wasn't omnipotent, explain the fact that he ressurected himself after being killed). Strangely this omnipotent Neo is nowhere to be seen in 'Reloaded'. In 'Matrix' Neo turned into a bolt of light and 'deleted' Smith, why can't he do anything near as powerful in 'Reloaded'?

Now, that being said, there were many, many problems with the movie. The plot was empty and hollow and it certainly wasn't thought provoking like the plot of 'Matrix' was. The plot of 'Matrix' made me think 'What is reality?' the plot of 'Reloaded' made me think 'What the hell is this?'.

'Reloaded' also had its own graphical issues. The film was super-saturated with CGI effects that weren't really necessary. A good example of this is the 'Neo vs. Smith, and Smith and Smith... etc.' battle. The whole sequence was done in CGI, and you could tell it. I for one expected to see a LIVE ACTION film, not a CGI one. I don't have any problems with using CGI to enhance people's actions (like in 'Matrix') but when you have a whole fighting scene done in CGI it really subtracts from the intensity of it all, especially considering the fact that this is a live action movie, not a CGI flick (a CGI fight in a CGI flick is good, a CGI fight in a live action flick is bad).

Now, onto the whole dance/party/sex scene. Why was it that this pointless scene was even kept in the movie? It seems to last for fifteen or twenty minutes and it serves no purpose that a short, ten second scene couldn't have served just as well.

The movie did have generally good action scenes, the CGI people aside, and I especially liked the fight with the 'ghosts'. I didn't feel, however, that this movie was able to build suspense or tension in the same way that 'Matrix' was (or even at all).

The bullet time scenes used in the film seemed to all be taken right out of the first movie (except for the scene over the explosion, that was amazingly well done when compared to the rest of the film). Also, the highway scene in 'Revolutions' wasn't anything amazing, and despite the fact that Morpheus had a katana, he doesn't do much anything exciting with it.

In conclusion, this film did have its strong points, but they were all few and far between, and they were all related to the action segments. As far as plot and dialogue go, this movie is lacking. All in all it seems like this movie was made from the first draft of a hastily written script. I heard that the Wachowski brothers worked on the script for 'Matrix' for over five years. They should have spent as much time on 'Reloaded'.

'Reloaded', like 'Matrix' attempts to soar, but unlike Neo it cannot fly, and therefore it falls, all the way down to it's timely death.

Also, Mirai Gen, just because a comment is short doesn't mean that it isn't intelligent. It seems to me that you only consider an argument 'intelligent' if you happen to agree with its conclusion.

So anyway, yes, 'Reloaded' is awful, which is why I have yet to see 'Revolutions'.

God Bless,

-S. Pasquella