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Matrix Reloads to $42.5 Million Opening

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the not-even-breaking-even-yet dept.

Dante Alighieri writes "Box Office Mojo, the Washington Post, E!, and others reports that The Matrix Reloaded opened with a record of $42.5 million in ticket sales." I saw it yesterday and have a variety of opinions on it, but the short review is that it isn't the original, but it's pretty damn cool, and I'm first in line for Revolution.

9 of 723 comments (clear)

  1. anyone else think... by minus_273 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that a ceratin scene in zion where lots of skin is shown along with partying was completely uncessary and detrcted form the theme of the movie?

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
    1. Re:anyone else think... by ChrisTower · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Everyone is complaining about the celebration scene in Zion. There is of course a very good reason for that scene to be there. They are celebrating real life; the taste and smell of sweat, a real body pressing up against you, the feeling of stone on bare feet. It's real and they love it and embrace every moment of their real life. It's a good thing that message wasn't a little more transparent, they everyone would have been bitching about how obvious everything in the movie is.

      --

      I'm tired of bombing the universe
  2. Matrix Reloads and Dry Fires. by methangel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know about everyone else but, Reloaded basically told everyone that the first movie was bullshit.

    I was disappointed with the villain development (there wasn't any.)Some of the fight scenes were totally unecessary, especially the replication scene. Neo just supermans his ass out of there after exploiting all of the latest filming techniques.

    Revolutions better fix things up or I'm going to be a very sad panda.

  3. My opinion.. by beldraen · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I just wanted to weigh in on this movie on a few points that I have seen brough up elsewhere. First, the hype over the CG is not as good as they said, in some places. I heard that I was not going to be able to notice any CG, and in many places I'm not sure how they could have done it without it and it looked great. However, in several places they still just do not have the resolution nor physics quite down right. I think the bullet-time was used in a few places that just did not need it. Overall, I was still very impressed with the imagery. Second, overt plot was good and if you think that there isn't going to be a plot twist (just like _The_Matrix_), you'll be suprised. Amusingly enough, while it is a cliff hanger movie, it didn't end where I expected to end. I honestly thought that it would have probably be better to end the movie a little earlier. Frankly though, it cries out to be completed, just like the Lord of the Rings movies. Finally, I feel sorry for a lot of people who thought it was dry. If one has a background in some theology and philosophy, all of the character cry out certain positions: faith, naturalism, determinism, free-will, gnosticism, body/mind problem, etc. I was very, very impressed with the depth of the references in the movie. Unfortunately, I think that is going to be missed on the vast majority of the movie watchers.

    My two cents,

    --
    Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
  4. Bah! by eatenn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I didn't like Reloaded very much at all.

    Not trying to troll here, but the problem with it, IMO, is that the Wachowskis (who wrote and directed it) received so much praise for the first Matrix movie, that they were under the impression the whole world wanted to hear them babble on and on about it.

    Characters will talk for what seems like hours and never actually say anything. In the first movie, the language was simple (Morpheus holds up a battery and proclaims that the machines: "Turn humans... into this."), and you just had to wrap your head around the concepts. In RELOADED, you have to wade through all the tech talk before you can even start to understand what you're being told... by then it's time for the next scene already.

    Also a problem was the overabundance of subplots (Agent Smith, the Morpheus love-triangle, the operator of the Nebachadneza(sp?) and his wife, etc) that they're all underdeveloped and hard to care about.

    Great action though. The Wachowskis obviously care about developing their mythology quite a bit, and that's commendable (and for some, this will demand repeated viewing), but they just need to make it a little more accessible IMO.

    --
    "But the cars are all flashing me, bright lights are passing me, I feel life passing me by" - Stiff Little Fingers
  5. Violence attracts crowds (spoiler) don't mod up by Idou · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I was listening to part of a program on NPR that was saying that the Matrix had to use violence to attract people in order to get its message through. As a sequel, the violence must be better than the previous movie. I was annoyed too, but maybe this says more about the kind of society we live in than what kind of judgement was used in making the movie. The second half of the movie made it well worth it.

    So since this is a spoiler thread, do you think all we have seen so far has been inside the matrix? Instead of having 5 "rebirths" of "the one", the same Neo has had to go through the same story over and over again. We are told that everyone has to make a choice to accept the Matrix, at a certain level. Are the machines trying to crush Neo's hope and get him to accept the Matrix as reality by giving him false hope, over and over again? Was the Matrix fully "reloaded" this time around? I see a new Matrix game coming out that has the Matrix "reloaded" instead of you dying.

    This movie has left me much more puzzled than the first one . . .

    --
    Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
  6. Re:messing with head? -- SPOILER ALERT by crashnbur · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Thinking on a biological level, this is like saying every decision you have ever made and will ever make are only effects of causes. Chaos, like being The One, is part of the program, a perceived effect of the nature of causality.

    Also, if pop-culture epic stories are supposed to summarize some glaring aspect of society as it exists at that time, as they all do, then The Matrix is pointing out to future generations our focus on just asking "Why?"

    Dante's The Divine Commedy encouraged not simply faith, but blind faith -- a quest for understanding God's righteousness without understanding God's justice. The Wachowskis' The Matrix, on the other hand, encourages faith in self alone -- a quest for only provable truth and a healthy, skeptical mind to question that which can not be objectively understood.

    The societies of classic literature such as Dante's epic poem were built on solid foundations -- there is God's truth and no other; any violation earns damnation. Thus, The Matrix also highlights our growing secularism or even atheism.

    I'm going around my ass to get to this, but the point is simple: morality is as subjective as belief in God. The Wachowskis probably like "teaching" people this version of toleration, as well as their version of responsibility: "I can only show you the door; you're the one who has to walk through it."

    Anyway, sorry for rambling. I like this stuff.

  7. Re:Deeper meanings (*** WARNING SPOOLERS ***) by steele25 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I saw the movie last night, and then read the disscusion on Matrix which featured on slashdot 2 days back. Without reiterating the reasons again, I think i agree with the whole concept of "Matrix within a Matrix". The question then is what could be the real purpose of machines if the idea of man being battary is also an illusion to blind humans from realising that Zion is also a matrix.

    I think there are no machines. Infact the Matrix is built by Humans (and not machines), to develope AI. And all the characters we see in the movie are just computer programs (like Agent Smith, Oracle). Which means Neo is also a computer program.

    Right now Neo is in version 6, and shown to be most promising candidate to being closest to being a human, and thus being the perfect AI. He is the only one to realise that Zion is also a Matrix, and thus becoming self-aware (which regular programs are not). Maybe Persephone (Monica Bellucci) is the only human in the Matrix, and when she asks Neo to kiss her, she is infact testing whether Neo can truely show humans emotion too. The architect is also there to test the program of Neo, by giving a few hints, and see if Neo realises that Zion is also a matrix.

    I think in the 3rd part we will see what Morpheus said in the first movie, "In the beginning of 21st century, the mankind was celebrating the creating of AI" (or whatever). This AI is Neo.v6, and humans will be celebrating its successful creation in 3rd part.

    But then, this is just what I think ....

  8. Why they tossed it to the side by dachshund · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The original Matrix unveiled a mindbending premise over a period of about 50% of the movie. It was artfully done, so as not to overload the viewer, but to keep him guessing. Once the premise was out, then the movie could move on to a satisfying action-oriented conclusion.

    Reloaded spent 95% of the time asking and answer precisely nothing. When Neo got to the Architect, suddenly there was an enormous amount to think about-- but it was dumped on you so quickly that you didn't have time to absorb it, or really mull the implications. Then you were running again, and then it was over.

    The point is, anyone can come up with plot twists. Good moviemakers also have to keep you interested.