[paulklenk]

Long, but well worth the read.

[fourdeuce82d]

Saw it...disapointed. It sucked. Balls.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Damn it! Next time put a "Spoiler Alert" in the title - I havn't even seen "The Matrix" yet!

;0)

[RLK]

An excellent read. My opinion is that The Matrix was perhaps the best science fiction film I have ever seen. I knew it the quality and complexity would be hard to follow in a series. I wonder it the makers even have the patience and creativity to do so. There are not very many times in a person's life that they have that spark. It may be a one-off act of genius.

[Travis McGee]

Did anybody ever catch the years ahead of its time Oliver Stone (yeah, I know) mini series called Wild Palms?

[DoctorMichael]

Warning! Spoiler follows!

I saw it tonight, came home and am now reading all the Matrix 'spoiler' Threads that I avoided before this.

Good article. The special effects of 'RELOADED" were jaw-dropping; the scenes were all beautifully lit (I was particularly impressed by the lighting in the Oracle's scene, very LSD-ish); and the movie was stunning in its cinematography. However, I too was disappointed in the plot which plodded along at points, was full of really bad dialog in others, and was full of metaphysical blather in still more.

Where the genius of the original was that it seemed effortless in weaving the featherlike story, plot, action, religion and metaphysics into a tight knot............RELOADED was leaden.

Still worth the viewing.

[The_Reader_David]

I've not seen the sequel, but the original The Matrix evoked a curious reaction from all the Orthodox Christians who saw it: we all liked it, and we all concluded it was a "monastic movie".

If one reads the metaphor as the equivalence, the Matrix = the material world, one ends up with Catharism or some other anti-materialistic gnosticism. But if one reads it as "the Matrix = the fallen world", one gets a different gloss. The escape to reality in The Matrix is ascetical: the desert of the real is the desert of Scetis or Palestine or the "northern desert" of the Siberian forest. For the Orthodox Christian, the desert experience, the life of monasticism, has a kind of normative influence: in a way, the ascetic discipline the Church calls all Orthodox Christians to, suggests that to be a full-time Christian, one needs to be a 'part-time monk'.

The fallen world bombards us with illusions just as real seeming as those the Matrix imposes on its denizens: I 'need' this coat, so I resent the poor man taking it; I 'need' a new computer (even though manifestly, since I'm typing this mine is just fine); the kids' soccer game is more important than Sunday Liturgy; and on and on. The struggle with the passions is not very cinematic, so flying gunfights will have to do for the movies, but the affray is no less sharp, and the demons no less deadly than Agents.

The original The Matrix is nicely incomplete as a story, the way the Gospels without the Acts are incomplete. I suspect I will see The Matrix Reloaded I just hope the subtext we Orthodox found in the original is still present, in which case, maybe it won't suck. (A villain whose name is a reference to the Franks is a good sign: visit www.romanity.org to see why, though 'the Carolingian' would be more apt than 'the Merovingian' as a suggestion of villainy to Orthodox minds.)

[Jesse]

It's only a movie. This guy needs to get a life.


My review.
Second Matrix. Thumbs up for special effects. Thumbs down for plot line.

[Brett66]

I'm looking forward to seeing this, reviews have no effect on me.

[Norse]

That dance/sex scene was really odd and made me further lose faith in humanity. It basically showed a bunch of almost naked bodies with the camera occassionally zooming to wet, moving feet dancing to some african third world beat grinding together. It seems as if the movie attempted to degredate mankind and make us appear as a bunch of animals (which, unfortunately, too many idiots are).

But I thought the story was pretty good...

[jagrmeister]

This essay is well-written and thought-provoking. As expected, the New Yorker takes a jab at conservatives for living in a "fictive" world by tuning into FoxNews. Leaving that aside, the essay references philosophical concepts (ie: Plato and the allegory of the cave; shadows) that I barely grasped thanks to taking a few college courses in it. Generally, I found those who dabbled in philosophy to be pompous and illogical. The professor referenced in this article who wrote a paper on the Matrix is such an example. Presuming we live in the Matrix, he belittles efforts at effecting long-term change if, after all, the Matrix will be reset someday. Simply because such a change will not be permanent, doesn't mean its not fulfilling or worthwile. I think I would be satisfied if my contribution to society lasted a few hundred million years, wouldn't you?

[DouglasKC]

His review of Reloaded is dead on. That first 45 minutes was like whatthe?? Excruciating was the word. I was sitting there going "This is stupid, get on with it." And then after that it was just too much. It's like they said "The fights were cool in the first movie. Let's have a lot MORE fights in this one."

[Prodigal Son]

bump for reading after I've seen it!

[Benrand]

Cool! I went to school with the Princeton prof James Pryor...that's cool.

I liked the movie, it's a good movie, not quite blade Runner due to the ridculous loud music and stylish nonsense, but the story was good, and the last movie should be good as well.

[LayoutGuru2]

The 'Matrix'
ABS CBN News, Philippines - 2 hours ago
... If the Matrix films, the most philosophically-challenging movies to be produced ... of
the politics of its makers, then this subliminal equation (Hitler=Bush ...

[joesnuffy]

stay home - read a book