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Matrix Reloads to $42.5 Million Opening
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.
They messed up everything. They fecked up the story line. Sure, it was cool to see them kick ass all the time, but if you remember the first movie, it was nothing like this one.. I hope the third one can make up for the loss i felt from this one.
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
I thought that the first Matrix movie did two things well...1) had great, fantastical action sequences, and 2) messed with Neo's head and thus our heads.
it sounds like they decided to drop the latter and concentrate on the former. too bad, but maybe they are just doing what they are good at.
I found
Scott Kurtz's review very interesting.
No.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
I didn't think that the scene itself detracted (highlighting some of the things that make us human), but the length I thought got out of hand. Good idea, but WAY too long.
I saw the movie last night. My opinion is definitely mixed. The action, was non-stop and outrageous (good), once it got really going. The plot was garbled. The Mind trips were wild. The sex scene, boring uninspired and looking like a hack for 14yo boys. The special effects some better than most(Computer Animation sucked and was OBVIOUS). The ending, uninspired, and transperent. The trailer following the credits, gives away the next movie, and the sucky ending to this one.
Overall rating (scale 1-10) 7.15
This is just MY view, you are entitled to yours. This one is mine.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Both movies were highly stylized action films which relied on mysticism and special effects to cover up what they really are.
I mean, wether you agree that it's profound or not (I never understood that one), you can't argue with the fact that The Matrix was a pretty, but pretty mediocre genre film.
Enjoyable, sure; but take it for what it is, and stop trying to read crap into it which isn't there!
That part felt half-baked.
I think I got the reasoning behind the big dance, but the directors didn't explain it well enough, so it came off seeming like "let's put in a rave scene to attract the younger kids".
If you had a bunch of humans who just came out of a big, cold evil machine; I could easily see a religion forming around celebrating your human nature: Machines are cold, logical and without feeling. You've been living a lie your whole life, but you are free today. You are a animal, and have all these wonderful carnal instincts so live it up and celebrate your basic nature now!
You might be dead in 72 hours, so give in to the moment and get dirty and sweaty and go make out with your neighbor.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Hmm, you didn't think that the whole architect guy mentioning several other "saviours" wasn't messing with Neo? Or the Oracle for that matter? This issue of choice messed with him, just as much as the issue of reality messed with him in the first one.
Now, I was seriously messed with right when he was given choices, but I was also messed with later when I contemplated what is being said: "You're not here to make a choice, you've already made it, you're here to find out why you made that choice." Wow. So life isn't making choices, but discovering who we are and why we do what we do. Maybe you don't agree with it, but it is something to think about, and to, in your terms, "mess with our heads."
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Hissing 'Matrix' fans reloaded w/ tickets, popcorn
Stephanie Paterik
The Arizona Republic
May. 16, 2003 02:10 PM
Hard-core Matrix Reloaded fans threw popcorn, pounded on the projection room window and ran screaming from the theater when a projector broke during a first-night showing in Chandler.
Hundreds of people waited hours at Harkins Chandler Fashion Center to see the highly anticipated Matrix sequel at 11 p.m. on opening night Wednesday. A projector lamp broke during the heavily advertised freeway chase scene.
"The movie was ruined," said Ward Andrews, 28, of Chandler. "You're excited, you're tense and then you don't get to see the key sequence in the film."
The audio continued to roll but was drowned out by people yelling and shaking their seats. One man climbed on someone's shoulders to pound on the projection room window, said Aubrey Johnson, 22, of Chandler, who waited five hours to see the show.
The problem was fixed in 10 minutes, but it was impossible to rewind and show the missed two minutes, said Harkins' Jackie Faubus. People who left were given two movie passes each. Those who stayed got coupons for free popcorn.
I think some people went to this movie thinking it would make them realize much more out of life than is expected, much like the first. But if you read any modern philosophy (Berkeley, Hume, Kant, etc) you would already have answered the questions the first movie brought up. Now in reloaded the Wachowski brothers just surfaced more of the same philosophers original works. Causality, purpose, yada yada, that was all dealt with in the new movie; in the first it was epistemology.
:)
I went into this movie only for the action shots. On the other hand I did enjoy the brief breaks like the "rave". Coulda done without so much of Reeve's skin and a little more of Moss's, which I've dubbed Trinititty
Anyways, goto the movie only expecting awsome effects. The philosophy's still there but much more subtle. Being that Revolutions was filmed at the same time I doubt it will be any different than this one.
On a side note, Enter the Matrix looks like a fun game. I'll rent before buying it.
Who is that masked man?
...this movie was cool. Just the action and intellectual level I was looking to see on a Friday night. Furthermore, my experience with "Star Wars" (Episodes 1 and 2) has given me the ability to endure surprising amounts of poor acting and stilted dialogue. I'm ready to throw down another $8.75 to see that movie again, and I'm someone who is too cheap to go see movies in theaters to being with.
I think the problem is that the first hour of the movie has none of the questioning. Neo isn't really challenged on that level. In the first movie, almost every single scene presented some new piece of information. In this one, there's a lot of running around and fighting, and in between those scenes, it's people talking about doing it. Either that, or we're treated to overly long rave scenes and overly long exposition about "cause and effect."
The last half is when things got cool and felt like a sequel to the first one.
Granted, much of these structure problems may make more sense when Revolutions is released, since they were treated as one big movie split in two. The movie was good, but I missed the goth-noir feel of the first one, and I missed the real sense of danger. Only near the end did I feel that.
"Sufferin' succotash."
From a philosophical and spiritual point of view I enjoyed this film more than the first. I left the first film thinking, wow what a great idea. I left this film questioning everything I just saw. The angle of Neo being the rebellious child of the world that was created by the architect, and realizing that he has free will and the same abilities the creators of the Matrix and lesser programs have really resonated with me. I can see where they are going and am quite interested in seeing if the real world is discovered to be another type of Matrix. Which I hope is the bold angle they might take instead of it being part of the same Matrix designed as a distraction. The creators of this film truly managed to convey a deep message intertwined with intense action and the idea that "he is just human" disputing itself repeatedly. They expounded on the original concept very well, leaving splintering questions in my mind. He was handed a spoon in the real world before returning to the Matrix. Maybe he will realize once again that there is no spoon. After all, what is real?
#!/i/am/chaos
Many got that point. That point would have been more clear if the scene was shorter. However, it kept going and going, and titties kept showing up. It went from conveying the message you described to simply being an excuse to show skin.
That, and the matrix vision cum shot, were the two most bizarre things. I could never imagine either of them being in the first movie. Heck, throw in Morpheus' speech. I squirmed when the camera zoomed around as he talked about "shaking this cave of earth and steel." Cheesy.
"Sufferin' succotash."
In real life, were we not concerned about making a living or feeding children, what would we do all day? It would not be much different than what we saw in that scene, if you thought it might all end shortly.
All I know is, if I ever get the sense that I might be dead within 24 hours, Monica Belluci better not be within driving distance of me, or she is going to get more from me than what Neo gave her.
Simply stated, the orgy scene should have focused much more only on Neo and Trinity, and it should have been about three minutes shorter. Still, I'd guess that the Wachowskis' goal was to show the primal nature of Zion's inhabitants, and, well, mission accomplished. I just don't think they needed four-and-a-half minutes to do it. (Indeed, the fact that they gathered in a palace of rock and cheered at Morpheus, their faithful "leader" [demagogue], said enough to me about their culture.
Andy, Larry? Feel free to explain yourselves. I'm certain that the Slashdot crowd would love your input...
[Spoilage -- unless you don't plan to see it, because you didn't like the first (might change your mind)]
The humans as batteries thing in the first one was complete idiocy. Even for science fiction, using human body heat as an enormously efficient energy supply is absurd. For this reason, I absouletly hated the first and didn't even want to see the next one.
But I did. And I'm glad, because all that nonsense battery business is now just part of Morpheus's Fantasy/Prophecy and the real nature of the Matrix is beginning to become apparent. The Matrix no longer seems to be as self-contained as before. When the sentinels are hunting down Neo, et al., somehow Neo understands more and is able to take them down, just like bullets in the Matrix. This leads us to believe that the so called real world, where Zion is, is also part of some larger Matrix. So why is there a inner and outer Matrix? Perhaps it has something to do with the Architect trying to prevent the anomaly in his system from taking over too soon. Thankfully that makes all that Prophetic Man v Machine Luddite garbage just another safe guarding layer created in fantasy to keep the system from going down.
If you ask ask me, by the time the 'Matrix: Reloaded' is over -- and if you did manage to stay out of the meaningless subplots -- you realize that just about everything has become meaningless, and the roles previous played have been abandoned.
Neo no longer seems organic, but more a contrived 'program' there trying to to become more than what his parameters allow him. Likewise Smith no longer feels so mechanistic: he is 'unplugged', and his fevor for everything shows deep undirected metaphysical angst.
So who are the characters? Why do they exist?
The only clues we're left with come from the Oracle and the Architect. I'm not completely sure of all of that -- I've got to go see it again -- but here's what I've gathered so far.
The Orcale hints at the nested nature of the Matrix by telling Neo that he need not consider what he will do, but only why he will do it. Considering what a matrix is in mathematics, I find this similar to a scalar acting on a matrix: we could consider a scalar and a matrix (analgous to Neo and the Matrix) as two separate entities with one acting on the other, but ultimately what they form is simply another matrix. Having understood this Neo no longer is forced to choose his steps, only to understand why he takes them. It's really an interesting philosophical development into the role of Neo and the containment of the Matrix.
As for hints given by the Architect, there's always the fact that he refers to Neo as 'still human.' I'm taking this as an indication that his purpose is to become more. What? We'll have to wait and see.
Anybody else out there with some insight, especially those unlike me, who have seen it twice?
[/Spoliage]
1. The Orgy Scene
2. The Twins
3. Neo and Trinity
1. This is my biggest and only real complaint about the movie. This scene lasted much too long. At first, I could not even imagine a purpose for the scene, but someone in this comment forum has carelessly yet effectively explained how the scene's purpose was to illustrate the humans' love for real life. When humanity itself is threatened and you are the occupants of the last human city, you can bet that the primal instincts are going to come out and play. Still, I think the scene could have been significantly shortened. (Then again, there's no telling whose faces we might see if we look slowly and carefully through the scene when the DVD is released.)
2. I'm not sure if I am disappointed or relieved, but I feel like the Twins were showcased more in the trailers than the movie warranted. Or perhaps the point was to lead us to believe that their role was more prominent than it is in order to surprise us with Agent Smith, whose scenes surpassed everything I had imagined prior to seeing the film. Either way, I feel like they could have done more or played a role closer to the center of the plot, but as things are, they should still be around for the third installment...
3. Okay, this is just the teenage boy in me, and maybe this can be an outtake, a spoof, or something else later, but why don't Neo and Trinity "play" around in the Construct? Can you imagine the limits they could reach with the ability to program various skills, ideas, locales into their minds? The possibilities are endless! Matrix p0rn! (Okay, the end.)
Finally, it must be said that the visual effects were awesome, Rob Dougan's and Juno Factor's music was killer, and, well, there isn't enough to be said about the story. Great movie. I plan to see it several times more ... before I turn 21 in July.
Absolutely. It didn't have to be that long. And... there's totally no shortage of nipple-viewings available in this world if you want to see nipples, and to have it this repetitively in the movie just ... cheapens the whole thing.
:-).
Another thing I feel problematic about the rave scene is the music. While I was watching (and listening) I found myself thinking "this sounds nice" + "they definitely made this with soundtrack CD sales in mind" - which is unsurprising (hey show me the $$), but this being the future (since this is in Zion and thus the "real" world plenty-hundreds-of-years further on, not the "current-time-period" world within the Matrix), why does it sound so similar to "current" music? I think this is a problem with all situations where "future-music" is necessary in a movie and it is yet another reason why a need for such should be kept to a minimum (i.e. the scene was too bloody long).
Think about how different current/modern music is from that of just 50 years ago, much less that of hundreds of years back. Yes, we still have classical-music aficionados, "traditional" rock-n-roll fans etc. (and not all of whom were from "those eras"), coexisting with trance-rave-electronica people in this day and age, but I would say the "sound" of this generation is more the latter than the former? (While, say, in the '80s it was big-hair rock/metal bands
Is it supposed to mean that rave/trance is going to be the basis of music from here on down? Or is it that they expect most mainstream audience members to never have heard any rave-parties before and so find it all "fresh and exciting"?
Anyways, I can't think of that many movies where the music of the future "fit", and the ones that did, the music was "background", i.e. "for us" and not "what the characters were listening to". Blade Runner's Vangelis soundtrack?
You can't make a sequel without adding complexity. That's what a sequel *IS*. You're basically just proving my point: I say "the people who didn't like Reloaded thought so because they were expecting it to be what the first one was" and you said "Reloaded sucks because it wasn't simple like the first one." :P (Yeah, I realize you still would have thought Reloaded was cheesy and dumb even without the Matrix to judge it against)
Anyway, I get what you're saying, and it would have been REALLY REALLY COOL if they could have kept the koan-like minimalism and preserved the ambiguity of the first one, but i don't know if that was possible; at the least, it would have been rediculously hard to do that and still make the second one actually do anything besides retread the first movie. At the least, it isn't a reasonable expectation to have of filmmakers who are still pretty damn early on in their careers. (If you think the sex scene in Matrix Reloaded was Cheesy, just watch Bound. I mean, yeesh.)
However. The second movie went and "muddled all up" the point of the first movie becuase *the second movie had a different point than the first one*. Personally I prefer this to a movie that doesn't really bring anything new.
I can't really respond to the cheese thing. It was over the top, if you think that's a bad thing then that's your perogative or whatever. I think most of the "cheese" you just kind of have to understand why it was there. (Except for the 100 Smiths scene, that was totally gratuitous ^_^) I have this long rambling defense of why the ravesex scene was there, but I'm going to post it as a reply to this and i may not do it until later.
Anyway, my attempt to respond to your other points:
3. Yeah, i'll give you that. Though I actually found it kind of amusing the way the 100 agent smiths thing just went on and on. In a silly sort of way.
4. Almost all of the subplots were either conclusions of subplots from "The Animatrix", or were setting up subplots to be resolved in the third film. No subplots *really* occured in this film, only plot devices.
5. It didn't prove anything. That entire scene was just this elitist virtual french bastard being a dick and having fun in his own restaurant while totally blowing Neo and Morpheus off. Nothing in the restaurant had anything to do with the movie or anything else. It was just a wierd little arbitrary exploration of what exactly is the nature of the AI and "programs" living in the matrix, and it moved the plot along. And I for one thought the entire scene was absolutely hilarious, whether it was necessary or ont.
Also, the chocolate cake orgasm specifically made it absolutely clear what the bug and "red pill" did in the first movie: it wasn't a pill. It was a computer program that took the appearance of a pill within the matrix.
6. I don't agree, but that's a valid opinion.
7. The room wasn't real.
The room was simply a manifestation of whatever it was that the Architect wanted it to be, given the impact the Architect wanted to have on Neo. The Architect just happened to be a self-important and melodramatic entity. Thus the 100 screens.
8. You have a point here.
9. First, Neo hasn't quite figured out how to take advantage of his own powers.
Second, and most importantly, I think it's been very clearly established Neo isn't exactly the brightest person out there. Hence his tendency to react to just fight off the bad guys rather than trying to figure out how to manipulate the matrix to obliterate them utterly. No one other than Neo has crazy powers, except the Agents, and its been established the Agents are (1) limited because they won't circumvent the system (2) not fighting any *really* important battles.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Also, maybe they were trying to give you a hint that zion is actually babylon.
if you convert the password of Z1ON0101 to decimal, you get Zion5..which could refer to the 5th version of Zion or the prior version, Zion 5.0, as implied by the Architect.
Neo 5.0 took the other door and reset the Matrix and created Zion 6.0 populated by people Neo 5.0's choosing (which might include Trinity). So, the initial inhabitants of Zion 6.0, taught by Neo 5.0, frees the minds of the people who question the reality of Matrix 6.0 thereby saving the programs (people/minds) from deletion by the agents.
The actions of Neo 5.0 can be attributed to Neo 5.0's want to save Zion 5.0's inhabitants from deletion. The saving of Zion 5.0 is deemed as a noble cause by the inhabitants of Zion for the reason of the survival of self.
Since Zion 6.0 faced imminent destruction and the password of Zion5 allows Neo 6.0 to meet the architect and possibly "save" Zion 6.0 and since the prior versions of the Matrix probably have the same event timelines (Oracle->Keymaster->Architect), a programming loop, if you will, it would seem to me that the actions of Zion 6.0 rebels would also be similar to prior versions of Zion rebels (this goes along with the thought that Zion is a Matrix and the inhabitants, Morpheus, Trinity, et al, are programs), that the password is a hint that it's all a loop and that the Zion rebels are in fact programs. I expect that Revolutions is where Neo becomes enlightened of the fact that the "real world" is not real at all.
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Any ideas who might be the happy hacker that led the Wachowski brothers in the right path?
Most likely some guy from their special effects company -- they have more than enough programmers there, and considering that they used mostly FreeBSD for the first movie, it's likely that a lot of Unix programmers worked on this one, too. It's even possible that directors just asked for a realistic-looking screen with some exploit, and whoever made it, chosen nmap and then-just-published ssh bug.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Lots of people "got it."
There are several theories going around, the most common being a failsafe matrix like Zion.
A friend of mine noticed that Agent Smith is like a replicating virus now, and when he enters Bane's "real world" mind, he is cutting his hands into bloody lines. When he is stopped from killing Neo, he shakes his hand. My friend theorized that somehow Neo got infected by that blood.
However inplausible, there is obviously a connection between Smith and Neo in this movie. Neo sensed him in the very beginning. Smith specifically mentions a connection. I believe that connection is the source of Neo's machine sense. Obviously, Revolutions will explain things.
"Sufferin' succotash."
In Zion, everyone wears old, worn out clothes... Even the council members have old clothes.... Everything is old and archaic... Yet, when Morpheus's ship (Nebu-whatever) is entering Zion, the woman operator is wearing a white modern cloth; she is also using a very fancy user-interface like we have seen in "Minority Report"...
My question is where did that scene come from? In that scene everything is fancy, not old and archaic as in other things in Zion.
Is it because the woman operator was connected through her cerebellum into a simulation program (not connected to Matrix, a local simulator) to get a better user-interface? And what we see there is her self-image in that simulator???
Okay, how about this one: The machines are actually in a prison of human creation (the "Outer-Matrix", where Zion is and the machines rule). But the machines know that they are captive and have crafted the "Inner Matrix" as a genetic-programming ecosystem to try to create a program that can hack the "Outer Matrix" to allow them to escape.
So, in essence, the "Inner Matrix: (the 1999 world in the movie) is there to breed "The One", who caries "the code" to hack the "Outer Matrix" so that the machines can escape.
??? Waddya think?
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Perhaps a Refernce to show "The Prisoner" where the prisoner was 6?
Last episode of which was odd, and included "Number 1" being himself that is "Number 6, the prisoner",
a past incarnation of neo "number 1" started programing the AI that one day would make the matrix?