First Matrix Reloaded Review

EpsCylonB writes "The IMDB is reporting that the London Daily mirror has the first review of the Matrix Reloaded. Sounds like the Wachowski borthers have gone for an all out action movie which is a shame if true. What I liked most about the original was the way it blended stunning action with a subtle philosphical theme about how we percieve reality." I'll hold judgement until the closing credits myself.

Your impression...

[dvk]

Your impression that the first Matrix had any philosophical content was just a glitch in the program.

-DVK

I'll take Morpheus's advice

[localghost]

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

Do not try to read the review...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Instead, you must only realize the truth.

What truth?

There is no review. It has been slashdotted.

Re:Philosophy and the matrix...

[kamikazichaser]

but that question was simply there to set up the action, not enlighten or challenge you. I loved the first one, but it was pure escapism, nothing more. if this movie is 10 times the action and 10 times the SFX, as the mirror reviewer states, then it will be 10 times the movie (ideally speaking of course). Hell, I want people to be passing out in the theater due to the action!

Philosophy?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I liked most about the original was the way it blended stunning action with a subtle philosphical theme about how we percieve reality.

Subtle "philosphical" theme? I'd say more of a junior philosophical theme. The "philosophy" in The Matrix was rather primitive.

It always seems ironic that people say they like Sci-Fi because it makes them think, yet when something with a low-level philosophy like The Matrix comes along, everyone goes ape over the "questions" it poses and how it makes them think, yet The Matrix was about as advanced philosophically as BASIC is an advanced language.

No. I correct myself. BASIC is a more advanced language than The Matrix is advanced philosophy.

Is it part two or part three

[supun]

where Neo is finds the buffer overflow error in the Matrix and installs Linux over the existing OS, forcing Mr. Smith to live inside VMWare session?

Re:Oh come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe that's just my arrogant elitist opinion. Mod down if you really want to, I suppose.

Is that your sig?

Re:A review I shall not read

[11223]

And reading Slashdot stories about reviews counts as seeing it cold release how?

Subtle?

[Anita Coney]

The Matrix had the subtlety of a Gwar concert!

Bogus Review

[Quantum Jim]

And Persephone, a sexy bad-girl-turned-good who hooks Neo up with the all-important Keymaker.

NO NO NO! That's wrong! He's not the Keymaker, he's the Keymaster. And he gets it on with the Gatekeeper before turning into a giant dog - pet of Gozer! Jeeze!

Re:Oh come on

[spoonboy42]

Of course it has Cartesian themes. It's a Matrix, after all.

I apologize for the prior lame math joke in response to my own post and hereby hang my head in shame.

Well...

[Faust7]

At least he gets a sex scene with Moss before he heads off to the city of Zion. It's one of the few breaks from the relentless action

I don't consider a sex scene a break from action, well, not exactly...

Re:Oh come on

[BTWR]

I'm talking about old dead Greek and European guys here

Last time I checked, Greeks were Europeans too...

Subtle and Philosophical?!

[cryptochrome]

If by subtle you mean beating you over the head with an existential truism, based on a idea going at least as far back as Plato and covered in countless SF stories, while violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics in a particularly egregious way, then yeah, subtle and philosophical.

matrix && pop culture

[bloosqr]

The Matrix is has philosophical overtones in the same way Philip K Dick has philosophical overtones. Admittedly, I am a HUGE PKD fan but in sheer entertainment/fictional value the pulp-sensibilities of reality and perception (aka practically any pkd novel or movies like the matrix/existenz etc etc) still win me over, over say plowing through "kierkegaard/descartes/sartre etc etc" or pynchon/delillo and their ilk :)

-bloosqr

To quote Orson Scott Card...

[Anonymous Coward]

"What matters is which fiction you believe."

Speaking of Pinket..

[cioxx]

I loved this part of the article.

"KEANU Reeves turned his moribund career around by taking the part of Neo. But it could have been a lot different. Ewan McGregor and Will Smith both turned down the part before the Speed star snapped it up."

Imagine Will Smith getting Neo's role then doing the soundtrack to Matrix. That would have been a disaster of Battlefield Earth meets Wild Wild West proportions.

Can you imagine the famous Hallway Shootout sequence and Will Smith rapping in the background?

subtle, like a duracell?

[GodWasAnAlien]

You mean subtle, like holding a Duracell(tm) battery to explain an energy cell to the audience?
Or subtle like Oracle(tm) pointing the audience to a chicken/egg circumstance that will "bake our noodle"?

Re:Destiny

[tealover]

Someone please save the parent post. It's the only known post to indicate a preference for Keanu Reeves' acting ability.

I'm sure someone from the Smithsonian will want to archive it.

Don't forget ...

[B3ryllium]

Leather and boobs.

Re:Speaking of Pinket..

[1nv4d3r]

Can you imagine the famous Hallway Shootout sequence and Will Smith rapping in the background?

I now know that I can. Thanks a lot...

Re:Philosophy and the matrix...

[Thing 1]

My favorite "reality anecdote" is from The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. There's a (minor) character in this trilogy who at one point says something like, "I've determined that we're living in a book, and I think I've figured a way out of it."

He's never heard from again.

Those guys did a lot of acid. ;-)

Re:Speaking of Pinket..

[bubkus_jones]

Hey, I liked Bill & Ted. He was perfect for that role.

Re:Well...

[m00nun1t]

I don't consider a sex scene a break from action, well, not exactly...

If you are a /. reader, it's more like a break from tradition.

Haven't even seen it, and I'm already complaining

[greck]

In one of the key scenes, Neo battles it out with first just one Smith, then eight, then 24 and finally 100.

1, 8, 24, 100? That's not a very apropos way for a computer-generated anything to replicate.

Yes, please shoot me already.

Re:Supposedly

[outsider007]

Somehow they used the humans connected to the Matrix to do some sort of processing.
that was what I always thought too.
you know how they say we only use 10% of our brains?
maybe it's because the matrix is using the other 90%.

Matrix and Marx

[Snafoo]

Okay, so it isn't 'subtle', but I think that the philosophical content of the Matrix resembles a late twentieth-century Marxist retort to postmodern/anarchist ethics, rather than a disembodied echo of Plato or Descartes. (In reply to apologists for the former reading: The 'real world' is far too dirty, and requires a revolution of consciousness in order to attain, rather than death, a la Plato. Plato suggests that the best we can hope for as mortals is _knowledge_ of forms, which is quite different from perception. And as for Descartes --- well, if you're painting with strokes that thick, we might as well say that any ontology which clearly distinguishes between perception and reality is Cartesian; ie, almost all philosophy ever written.) Consider the indicators: The antagonist is a 'Mr Smith' (get it? As in 'Adam'?). The object of Neo is to 'awaken' the citizens from the fripperies and consolations of decadence to the reality of tje exploitation of their energies (labour). Sure, the task will require complete subordination to those leading the revolution, but, as ugsome as such a prospect might be to senses of personal dignity and liberty, it is certainly to be favoured over the false liberty of cosmopolitan capitalism.

Or maybe it's just a movie.

A guide to London's Newspapers

[Robber Baron]

The Times...read by those who run the country.

The Daily Mirror...read by those who think they run the country.

The Guardian...read by those who think they ought to run the country.

The Morning Star...read by those who think the country ought to be run by
another country.

The Daily Mail...read by the wives of those who run the country.

The Financial Times...read by those who own the country.

The Daily Express...read by those who think the country should be run the way it used to be.

The Daily Telegraph...read by those who think it still is.

The Sun... read by those who don't care who runs the country just as long as she's got big tits!

Re:Philosophy and the matrix...

[curunir]

Yeah, but you used standard multiplication...with "Matrix" multiplication a single zero doesn't zero out the entire result...

Re:Its a sequel

[drinkypoo]

they did things that were unheard of in the movie inudstry at the time. I believe that Matrix Reloaded will be the same...right down to the romance scenes!

I don't think that it would be appropriate to include, say, explicit close-ups of anal sex, which is what it would take to shock hollywood at this point.

Re:Philosophy and the matrix...

[Groganz]

But Rene DesCarte was a drunken fart who was very rarely stable.

Re:Philosophy and the matrix...

[tuxedo-steve]

Score:-1, Uppity masturbation.

If you think you've got the opportunity to teach people something, learn to do it gracefully.

Re:Not First Review at all.

[xaaronx]

Imagine that, misinformation on Slashdot!

The Mirror

[wodon]

As many fellow British Slashdotters will know, The Daily MIrror is not exactly a bastion of news intellect.
It is much better than the virtual soft pornography of the Sport but not quite up there with the broadsheets. I am not surprised that the review focuses on the violence and sex scenes rather than whether it is actually a good movie.

Ill not got off my middle class socialist soapbox and go back to my copy of the Grauniad (sic).

Re:Well...

[nailBnny]

Watching a sex scene is a break from tradition for the /. reader?

Re:Its a sequel

[grondu]

Its supposed to make money, not innovate all over again.

Do you mean innovate in the dictionary sense, or innovate in the Microsoft sense?

Re:Philosophy and the matrix...

[Drakonian]

Cute, but yeah it does. [wpi.edu]

Re:Speaking of Pinket..

[LilGuy]

I agree! I never thought of Johnny Depp being in the matrix as there weren't any drug references.. but then I over look the pill popping scene. They woulda done a roll on that scene alone as I'm sure they couldn't have stopped him from popping both pills.

Re:Its a sequel

[Peterus7]

Hey, what people loved about the matrix was they could see things that could never happen in the real life... The first one offered bullets stopping...

And the second shows a geek getting laid by a hot chick... Yeah.