Well, let's start with something postive: the special effects and fight scenes were breathtaking. Before I went to the movie I was worried that there would be too many fight scenes. But after about 20 minutes of dialogue and exposition I was begging for someone to blow something up.
What about Zion? The promised land at the center of the earth is a Gothic underworld filled with deeply concerned citizens. Zion is facing a pivotal moment in which the fate of the human race hangs in the balance. Someone should probably make a bold move, but it turns out that there is political gridlock. I didn't understand if the situation in Zion was supposed to purposefully resemble the current political situation in the United States, but if it was, then the simulation was too real. I felt annoyed with the simplistic speeches that various people made (including the Morpheus' State of the Union address), just like in real life.
And then there were the goofy incongruities, which are too numerous recount and too painful to remember. Here are two that I haven't been able to forget yet.
At one point in the film we meet a character named Merovingian (or something like that) who is speaks many languages, but prefers French because it is "good for cursing." Budding screenwriters should study this scene carefully: it has pretty much every flaw that you could build into a movie to completely destroy the viewers' effort to suspend disbelief. Note, however, the acting was pretty good. But when you have a bad script good acting just highlights the problem even more (so that's another thing for you budding screen writers to think about).
Then there is the scene toward the end of the movie when Neo encounters the guy who built the Matrix. The speech that the Matrix-builder gives is (I think) supposed to sound deep and mysterious, but instead it sounds like a philosophical mission statement written by a committee of jargonists. I did have a major mind-blowing revelation at this point: namely, that there is nothing worse than really bad philosophy. Well, maybe Keanu Reeve's acting, but I already knew that.
Yes, friends, something very bad is happening in the Matrix, but what it is is no longer a mystery. The key was in the first movie. Remember Cypher? (the guy played by Joe Pantoliano who wanted to be 'reinserted' into the Matrix). Well, turns out that he had the right idea. He must have known it was going to get ugly, and wanted to get out while the getting was good. Like Cypher, I too would like to be reinserted into The Matrix. Things in the Matrix Reloaded are very unsatisfying, and that's got me thinking that maybe the machines actually aren't so bad after all.
