Darik Houseknecht (itbegins2005)

I imagine that what I felt when I first walked out of a screening of The Matrix Reloaded is the same feeling that Star Wars fans must have had walking out of Episode One. First came confusion. Then denial. Then dread. Shock. Outrage. Deep, existential questioning. And then, finally, the fatalistic realization that the sequel to one of your favorite movies of all time sucks donkey balls. And that there's nothing that can ever change that.

For a while there, The Matrix really did seem like it was going to be the next Star Wars: the first one was this huge, runaway success that everybody loved, and that had kind of metamorphosized overnight into a cultural icon. And with the creative minds behind the original coming back in to do a sequel-- or, more accurately, a TRILOGY-- and bringing with them the original cast and a budget that would shame the combined gross national products of all of Europe, the series just had the word "EPIC" written all over it. Unfortunately, the problem with success is that it can go to your head-- and it most definitely went to the heads of the Wachowski Brothers, who, in their endeavors to make the movie even more philosophically dense and visually revolutionary, completely forgot to bring any of the fun of the first film back for an encore. The Matrix Reloaded is just an incredibly dull film, lacking all the indie edge of the first film and replacing it with overproduced C.G. action scenes and endless monologues that feel more like philosophical sermons than something a human being would actually say aloud. Even though they're established fairly quickly, the stakes in the film never feel very pressing, mostly because we don't care about any of the characters anymore; Neo has transformed from our relatable everyman hero into a stiff-collared Messiah figure-- basically Superman without the warm smile-- and everyone else is played cool and aloof, to the point that they all seem like mannequins in trench coats (except for the annoying little twerp who follows Neo around for no reason). Worse still, half of the movie is made up of filler, as the heroes have to chase down the objective to reach an objective that leads to another objective, without any of it forcing them to grow as characters at all; at a certain point, you lose track of what exactly it was they were trying to do in the first place, because of all the meaningless crap that happened in-between. (And don't even get me started on the Zion rave.) Basically, if there was a way to f*%$ up everything the first movie did right, this sequel did it in spades... with a few notable exceptions.

The story opens with a context-less vision in Neo's dreams of the death of Trinity and the revelation that an army of Sentinels is headed for Zion; Morpheus and co. want to see what the Oracle has to say, but she's mysteriously disappeared (for reasons that are never, ever adequately explained, mostly because it's an obvious plot contrivance to pad out the run time). The Zion forces are recalled home, but Morpheus decides to stay just long enough to enjoy the sweaty rave sequence before heading back out so that Neo can have his rendezvous with the Oracle. After a bunch of cryptic talk about making choices (basically a "philosophy-for-idiots" crash course on free will vs. fate), she tells him to go see the Merovingian, an evil French program who's holding the Keymaker, whom Neo needs to rescue so he can get to the Source and fulfill the prophecy or whatever (anyone else notice that sci-fi movies that overuse vague prophecies as integral plot devices tend to suck?). What is the Source? What exactly is the prophecy? Why will doing something in the Matrix stop machines that are attacking Zion in the real world? Who the hell knows-- this movie is too busy throwing new characters and meaningless technobabble about programs becoming werewolves and vampires at us to really let us get into (or even follow) the story. Which is a damn shame, because the climax features a brain-bursting revelation about the nature of the One, Zion, and the Matrix that, thanks to some pompous, overwrought dialogue and the glacially slow plot development up 'til then, takes at least three or four viewings to really understand and to grasp the sheer scope of. It's like there's a good movie here, but it's padded to death with monologues and action sequences that seem to go on forever. And of course, the whole thing ends on a cliffhanger-- one that, if you're not paying attention, might just fly right over your head since it has to do with a subplot that has next to nothing to do with the main story.

Keanu Reeves returns as Neo, the One foretold to bring an end to the machine/human war, but this time around, he's been deprived of two important things: his humanity, and his powers. Regarding his humanity, the character really has nowhere left to go as a character since he's already completed his hero's journey, so he's just sort of... there, standing around in his starched-collar suit and coming off as more of a monk than a relatable hero. And as for his powers... Okay, the last movie ended with his discovering that he can "alter the Matrix as he saw fit", right? So why is it that all he can do in this movie is stop bullets, fly, and be super-strong? What happened to super-speed? Instant-killing Agents? Warping the reality around him to suit his needs? Why doesn't he do what he's supposed to be able to do? Well, I'm thinking the directors realized that they gave their hero WAY too much power at the end of the last film, and so they scaled his abilities back for the sequels-- but as a result, he seems like a bit of an unimaginative clod, since he apparently has God-like power, but can't think of anything better to do with it than use it to kung-fu fight better. Carrie Anne-Moss is also back as Trinity, but she doesn't contribute a damn thing to the story other than giving Neo something to brood about; character-wise, she's just as stiff and disconnected as Keanu is (an impressive feat, to say the least), which leads me to wonder if the training these people went through for the fight scenes somehow drained the actors of all their energy and their humanity right before shooting. Thankfully, Lawrence Fishburne comes off as good as ever in the role of Morpheus, who, while not as impressive a figure as he was in the first film, is at least as cool and collected as he was before, with a decent sense of humor and a few awesome moments with a samurai sword. And then there's Smith. Smith, played once again by Hugo Weaving, is probably the only character who comes away from this whole debacle completely unscathed (well, save for one moment in the next movie); the former Agent returns here as a self-replicating computer virus (appropriate, given his opinion of humankind) who, through sheer numbers, gives Neo the fight of his life in the film's most satisfying fight sequence. Weaving is as cold and diabolical as ever, and I have to admit there's a certain glee that comes with seeing him copied and pasted over and over again into an ocean of disdainful faces. As for the rest of the cast, there are a lot of new additions, but they're mostly dull and unremarkable. A pre-Lost Harold Perrineau Jr. gives the film a dose of humanity as the team's new operator, Link, and Jada Pinkett Smith serves as the token love interest for Morpheus named Niobe. Other than that, it's a sea of boredom. Oh, and the late Gloria Foster, one of the highlights of the first film, makes a welcome return as the Oracle, in what would unfortunately prove to be her final performance.

If the first Matrix was a lean, mean fighting machine, the second is that same machine forty years later: fat, sluggish, and more than a little punchy. The script is like the bastard offspring of a philosophy textbook and a kung-fu movie, with a dash of "bad sci-fi novel" thrown in to keep things interesting. The Wachowskis, having confused narrative complexity with depth, have put together a movie that's bloated with unnecessary subplots, extraneous characters, and soul-crushingly long conversations about choice, causality, and purpose; all these things tend to obscure the actual story the film is trying to tell, which makes it hard as a viewer to keep track of what's going on, let alone to give a damn about it. Furthermore, the film's pace is jarring. It alternates between ludicrous stretches of quiet, monotone dialogue scenes, and equally ludicrous stretches of ass-numbing action spectacle. And don't get me wrong, the action spectatcle in this movie is AMAZING (the Neo vs. Smith fight very much reminds me of the climactic lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Darth Maul in Episode One-- it's an extraordinary highlight in an otherwise bland, boring film), but there's only so long we can watch a guy fighting off an army of clones or follow a freeway car chase before we just start to get numb to what's happening on screen-- ESPECIALLY since we don't have a clear idea of how these scenes forward the plot. The visuals just aren't as stunning or ingenuitive as those in the first film, lkely due to the Wachowskis' ridiculous workload; it has to be tough to come up with interesting camera angles and unique images when you're shooting for two hundred straight days on two separate movies. It's disappointing, but I'll give 'em a pass on that. The special effects are leaps and bounds beyond anything else you could see from the time, but what the filmmakers attempt to do with it is occasionally beyond the scope of what it's actually capable of (the all-digital Neo and Smith are really only a few steps above cartoon characters). But frankly, my biggest complaint about these films is, and has always been, the cinematography. Bill Pope takes the greenish-tinged look of the first film and ramps it way up, draining away every other color in the palette-- in particular, flesh tones. This gives the entire cast a ghastly white pallor that makes them look sickly rather than superhuman, and it saps the energy from every scene.

In my opinion, the greatest failing of The Matrix Reloaded is that it's sorely lacking the most striking element of the first Matrix movie: wonder. The original film was all about the nature of knowledge and reality, which was great-- it lent itself to some amazing visual imagery and sci-fi action, all of it tinged with a feeling of discovery as we delve into this new world. The second, however, shifted gears to focus on the nature of free will-- a subject that is about as far from cinematically interesting as possible, and one which meant that all of the discovery we were expecting was to be replaced by angsty brooding and endless verbal analyses of choice. In terms of the concept, the Wachowskis had laid all their cards on the table by the end of the first film, and so from the very beginning of the second, you can just feel that they have nothing new or exciting to show us. Oh, sure, they've made everything bigger than it was before, and the effects are, in a way, more impressive (though that all-C.G.I. Neo ain't got nothing on the bullet-time in the original), but there's a sense that it's all old hat now, and that, worse, it feels tired and flat. It's still a smart film-- there's no denying that-- but it's smart in the way that a doctoral thesis on fatalism is smart: you may learn a thing or two from reading it, but it's not what anyone would call "entertaining".

Part man... part machine... all cop.

It's ironic that a film set in a hypothetical near future would be so unmistakably "eighties", but RoboCop is so perfectly executed that it transcends such superficial criticisms. While you might think, at first glance, that this was an example of high-concept Hollywood at its worst, RoboCop's simple premise and blood-soaked action sequences belie a thoughtful, intelligent film that serves as a meditation on the value of identity and the nature of humanity. This is science fiction at its absolute best, exploring the most fundamental questions about life and society through the exaggerated lens of a future (though not necessarily futuristic) world in which a corporation can literally buy your body and turn you into a machine- which raises the question of whether the same can be done to your soul. When you really break it down, RoboCop has a little something in it for almost everyone. Don't care for the sci-fi or metaphysical philosophizing? Well, it's also a scathing satire of Reagan-era America, where corporate sharks are in control of everything and the criminal masterminds spew the same capitalist jargon as respected businessmen. Political commentary making your head hurt? Feel free to turn your brain off and enjoy the whirling dervish of bloody action this movie tosses your way- action so extreme, in fact, that the film was initially slapped with an "X" rating (the Criterion Collection DVD and the unrated cut restore the more graphic footage that was removed to ensure the film's eventual "R"- FYI, that's the one I own). "Smart" and "visceral" are not two qualities that typically come together in a single movie, but RoboCop manages the feat with seeming ease; the film may look like just another silly sci-fi exploitation flick, but like the character himself, there's an unexpected humanity lurking just below the surface.

As the first American film from director Paul Verhoeven, RoboCop features a lot of the elements that would go on to become his trademarks: social and political satire, unflinching ultraviolence, Ronny Cox as a bad guy, and, of course, faux news breaks that move the story forward- kinda like the one that opens the movie, introducing us to the '80s-style near future and letting us know that Detroit is facing a crime wave... one that the now privately-owned police department is unable to deal with. From there we meet Officer Alex J. Murphy, a Detroit cop reassigned to the besieged Metro West precinct and partnered with hellion Anne Lewis. It's not long before the two find themselves chasing down local crime boss Clarence Boddicker and his gang; tracking them to an abandoned factory, the two rush in without back-up, and Alex ends up cornered by the criminals... who promptly shoot him to death in one of the most graphic on-screen murders in movie history. Murphy's story would have ended then and there, if it weren't for the intervention of Omni Consumer Products, the corporation that owns the police; appropriating Murphy's body as O.C.P. property, they use him as a test subject for an experimental law enforcment program, incorporating his remains into a cybernetic crime prevention unit they dub RoboCop. At first, he seems like the perfect unquestioning tool, programmed merely to "serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law", but slowly he is confronted by memories and images that he doesn't understand- ephemeral flashes of the life he once had, and the man he used to be. Driven by his half-remembered past, RoboCop tracks down the men who killed him, only to discover that they have connections with one of the top executives at O.C.P. itself; in the end, RoboCop must face both his destroyers and his re-creators in order to reclaim his identity and reassert his lost humanity.

This film wouldn't be half of what it was if it weren't for Peter Weller's outstanding portrayal of RoboCop. This is the role he was born to play, if for no other reason than that he was thin enough to fit into the suit (they wanted to give the role to Michael Ironside, but he was just too big); through slow, deliberate movements and an artificial, monotone delivery, Weller sells that he's been transformed into an indestructible mechanical juggernaut, before slowly allowing his humanity to creep back in as he rediscovers the man he was. The actor excels in all three roles that are demanded of him, actually: the likable human cop, the platitude-spouting corporate tool ("Thank you for your cooperation. Good night."), and the bitter, disconnected "man" trying to remember the life he once had. Helping him back on the path to his humanity is Officer Anne Lewis, played by Nancy Allen. Lewis is a good cop and a tough woman, and I can't begin to express how glad I am that they didn't try to turn her into a love interest (since that's what Hollywood usually does with the sole female character in any given action movie); instead, she serves as RoboCop's foil, brimming with the vitality and humanity that he's had taken from him. Taken, specifically, by Kurtwood Smith's Clarence J. Boddicker, the crime kingpin of Detroit. Smith has all kinds of fun in the role of Boddicker, reveling in the character's evil nature and giving us a villain we can truly love to hate. (more to come)