Me, Neeraj, Alex, Alex, Alfish, Hao, Jason, James, etc. went to see Matrix: Reloaded at Southpoint. Because I don't want to be inconsiderate to those who have not yet seen this movie, I will continue this entry as a link. Click below to continue ... For those who have not yet seen it, GO SEE IT! AGAIN, I WARN YOU, MY REVIEW IS SPOILERS UPON SPOILERS! DO NOT READ IT UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN IT!

First off, the movie's kung fu scenes have gotten a ton better. The action scenes were all very stylish in the Matrix sense and didn't really reek of ripoffs as the first one had (Fist of Legends, anyone?!). The fight scenes, especially the fight scene against the Agent Smiths was impressive.

The eyecandy ... was a little bit lacking. Jada Pinkett Smith looked NICE in that movie, as did Persephone (Monica Bellucci) ... but Carrie Anne Moss looked ... well older. Her nose looked weird. And I *really* dont' like the IV holes on everybody. They looked ridiculous. If the humans are capable of building ships that can hack into a huge computer Matrix, can they not figure out how to get rid of those old IV holes?!

I'll touch on this later, but what exactly was the purpose of Neo having to kiss Persephone? Maybe they'll build this into Matrix: Revolutions, but I saw it as downright unnecessary. The target audience for Matrix did not really want to see long kissing scenes. We wanted to see nice fight scenes. But seriously ... could the brothers do no better for eye candy? I mean there was better eyecandy in Rush Hour 2! (Rosalyn Sanchez and Zhang Ziyi .. mmm)

Now, what the brothers did well with the fighting scenes and the general style of the movie, they blew with the plot. Now I'm not saying the plot sucked - I just had very very high standards going into that movie. They introduced nothing really interesting or new, and it just seemed like they were dragging the movie out, blowing their $800 million happily along the way. (Note: I'm not really sure how much they were alloted and I'm really too lazy to find out).

There were a few scenes which were downright unnecessary; the Neo/Trinity love scene as well as the whole Zion dancing scene. I really didn't like the way the council members and Morpheus dressed up like religious dorks and the way they 'inspired' the crowd with their 'speech.'

But Agent Smith is still badass. In typical sequel manner (e.g. Blade 2), the old enemies are downgraded (Agents) in favor of a 'new' breed of more dangerous enemies (programs that go bad ... Agent Smith). However, I would have liked to see more development with the twins. I'm kinda sad that that Neo didn't fight them; their death was kind of quick and anticlimatic. The fact that Neo had a longer fighter with the underhenchmen for that French dude (who was awesome) kinda bothered me. I would of rather have seen Morpheus/Trinity kick their asses with their kung fu and seen Neo deal with the two twins. But I guess they needed two bodies for the highway scene ....

I really disliked the way the brothers reused old material from their first movie; not only is it repetitive but it just blows the movie. A sequel should continue the story - not relive it. The Trinity 'jumping up in the air with her hands up to jumpkick somebody' was crap. Total crap. So was the whole method of starting the movie with the same scene they're going to end with - that only works well with mystery movies where there are enough plot twists that the second time you're not saying "hurry up, I know what happens." Of course, knowing that there was a cliffhanger ... I thought they would either end it right before that bullet hit Trinity or right when Neo opened the door - but they ended it on a resolution of sorts. I guess that's nice of them.

Some guys I went with were talking about how they thought there was a 'second layer' Matrix that everyone thought was the 'real world.' I really don't think that's the case. Neo is important because in him is the source code to restart Zion and the Matrix system; the machines won't destroy him because it would destroy their very own livelihood. The machines control the humans physically (in the 'real world') by destroying Zion and removing memories. After all, things are only real as long as you believe them. The whole ordeal where Neo stops the Sentinels only indicates that Neo is important to the machines and they wouldn't destroy him.

I really didn't like how Neo just magically 'resurrected' Trinity. It smelt too much of the kiss from the first Matrix .. way to reuse ideas! Plus the whole thing was just hokey. At least with Neo you can justify it by saying he's "the One." How do you justify resurrecting Trinity? Neo loves her "too damn much?" Give me a break.

As for the cinemetography, it was quite good. When Neo and company entered the Matrix, there was a different feel to the cinemetography, in that Traffic-esque manner (not as obvious of course). Good job on that.

I'll discuss plotlines and stuff later on ... if people have questions. I think I know what the deal is.

Edit 1: GOOD GOD. WHAT THE HELL WAS UP WITH THE HIGHWAY?! They apparently BUILT a freeway outside of LA ($100 million was the cost? Someone back me up) because they couldn't find a highway with the right FEEL. What the heck? I didn't notice ANYTHING special about the highway they built - it looked a lot like Washington DC's highway systems. What a way to waste money. And Konrad just told me the raver scene cost $300 million. What the HECK?