“At one point Neon puts his entire fist up inside his girlfriend Trinatron’s body and its so romantic and it actually saves her life!!”
This week docweasel.com’s top reporter on the Hollywood gossip beat, Jeremy Taters, gives his take on the new hit movie Matrix Reloaded.
Matrix: Reloaded by Jeremy Tater
Ok this movie is just blowing the doors off all other movies in terms of lots of hype and ‘buzz’ as we say in the biz and that is always the sign of a great movie when hoardes of fans flock to see it and all the entertainment shows are doing features on it and such so you just know its going to be great, studios only spend humungous amounts of money pumping up the very best movies and boy was I entertained and how!
This movie’s director and producer and actors better start clearing off some mantle space because this reviewer smells O.S.C.A.R. and I don’t mean Myer hotdogs! Yes, the writing and acting are just that good, if the pre-release publicity is any indication!!!
Well first a little background if you didn’t see the first one, you are just going to be lost in this one- although I did see the first one and was still lost but I don’t think it really matters. The story is kinda filler for the really impressive and complex computer work fight scenes anyway. If you like fight scenes, boy are you in for a treat. I think no matter how much you enjoy them, you will have a bellyful of them by the time you are finished with this kick-a-thon!
Anyway, to begin with Neon (Keyanu Reed, who you remember plooked Charlene Therone when she had cancer in Sweep November and has just been great in every other movie he’s done all the way back to Bill and Ted and PeeWee’s Big Adventure and the Dental Advocate) is this guy who is “the One” they never do say the one what but its a big deal because they mention it a lot, like every other sentence.
It would have been good to have a number 1 on the back of his leather duster just to remind you in between people saying it, but they can’t think of everything or critics like me would be out of a job! If you pay good close attention I’m sure you’ll figure it out this and other plot mysteries (like what the plot actually is) but I got a cellphone call and had to step out so I missed a couple important points but I don’t think it matters.
Turns out it was my pet-sitter who was distraught, my chi had eaten an entire bag of Cheetos that Juanita had left out and was pooping orange goo all over my new white shelf carpeting and I was just LIVID but what can you do, good sitters are so hard to find and I have to get out sometimes, but when you have a little darling at home its just impossible, so I have to deal with Juanita or I’ll have to wait for the DVD! I think she raids my liquor too but that’s another story and we DO have a movie to review here.
Where was I? Oh yes so after some really impressive and expensive CGI scenes where Keyanu’s stunt double does some great work and he himself puts in some very grim and manly closeup face shots looking quite concentrated on the matter at hand, i. e. kicking some computerized butt, then there are some other things that happen. I really should have taken notes but a few of them stuck with me.
1. An oriental guy ushers him in to a park with birds. He talks to a nice black woman who gives him a piece of candy and they discuss various plot points. The oriental guy and the nice black lady are programs (what will Bill Gates come up with next?!)
2. Lawrence Fishman, who by the way has perfected a way of talking in a completely expressionless and unemotional voice as if he were semi-comatose- well he has lots of lines and he also has developed a completely flat blank look that complements his line delivery wonderfully!
He is mostly kind of put off because this other black guy (who isn’t even a star) stole Jada Pinkerton Smith (The Fresh Prince’s real life bride!) his old girlfriend, named Nairobi, and now the thought of this other guy (name escapes me but he only has about 10 lines anyway) banging her nappy-headed self just has Lawrence, or Memphis as he is known in the movie, has just driven Memphis into a monotonal frenzy.
He even raises his voice at one point. But no matter what happens he stays in character as the man with only one emotion- violent apathy! He almost falls off a truck in another scene, not to give anything away.
Then later there’s a big crowd scene where he’s annoucing the band (the guys from the Broadway show Stomp, where they bang on all kinds of pots and pans and various kitchen utensils like you have around the house, very rythmically and all these ethnic looking people writhe around in an enthusiatic and rhythmic manner while sweating profusely and stomping in the mud. The future is very hot, sweaty and dirty, according to this movie.
Apparently Neon is the only white person to survive in the future. And he is the leader of all the brown people and tells them what to do. Trent Lott would love this movie! While the other people dance Neon and his girlfriend enjoy a nice dry hump and make ecstatic facial expressions. Well she does, he still just looks manly and concentrating hard, like he is thinking about baseball statistics, a device a lot of men use.
Then, just when you think things can’t get anymore unpredictable or crazy, another fight scene! What is really cool is no matter how hard anyone gets kicked or hit or slapped or whatever noone bleeds or even gets their clothes or hair mussed and everyone goes home happy after a hearty workout. It must have saved a fortune on special effects for all the wounds that kind of fighting would normally produce, but you have to save money somewhere! The vinyl and leather and sunglass budget must have eaten all the money up.
In other parts lots of cars get wrecked as they drive around the highway. I don’t think the stars of the movie were really going anywhere, they were just out for some fun and some great car wrecking effects and I must say, I for one thought it looked very expensive and time consuming to do! Bravo directors and other special effects people! What action movie would be complete without the wholesale slaughter of innocent bystanders?
Speaking of special effects, everyone just looks stylish and macho and has great chi chi wardrobe choices, exotic hair and really cool sunglasses they wear day or night, indoors and out, and nothing says “hey I’m cool and stylish” more than really outlandishly modern looking sunglasses, you know, the kind that look passe and ridiculous about 5 weeks after they become cool for a week?
God I remember running out and plunking down $140 (that’s not peanuts to a workin’ gal!) for some Oakleys which were au courant at the time and then realizing a week later how they made me look like some weird species of bug.
But some a-hole stole them off my sun visor the next week anyhoo so that’s life, what can you do? I sure didn’t run out and buy another pair, I look just fine with my black Wayfarer knock-offs I found on the tea-cup ride at Disney World. They are perscription and give me a terrific head-ache if I wear them for more than an hour but they look so tony I don’t mind a bit! The things we do for fashion! You girls know what I mean 😉
Meanwhile back at the movie, these monster things that kind of resemble canister vacuum cleaners on steroids are digging digging digging down to this rave club below the surface where all the black and hispanic (and I saw a few asians in there, they probably have to work out all the math problems the future people have, they are great at math, they invented the abacus you know) and although noone really says it, you can just tell these Hoovers with an attitude are up to no good!
There are some other interesting parts where a girl’s private parts explode from eating chocolate (sound familiar girl!) and this guy speaking with a truly hilarious faux FrOnch accent rambles on for a bit then his girlfriend kisses Neon in the Men’s Room (they should pay me for that scene! That’s the story of every Saturday night for me, smooching in the little boy’s room!) and there is a big fight with spears and knifes and hatchets where you are just sure Neon will be injured but SPOILER ALERT:::::: he emerges unscathed!
Ok I don’t just want to give you a wreck by wreck and punch by punch replay, time for some analysis. After a lot of kicking and car wrecks you get to the philosophical, meaningful part of the movie that is so complicated normal, non-future people like us will never understand it so just don’t try. From what I can tell the writers of this movie are so advanced and intelligent we can never hope to make heads nor tails of whats really going on, so most of the audience just drools and cheers the fight scenes.
Also there’s a touching part where Neon puts his entire fist into Trinatron’s (Carol Ann Motts) body but I don’t want to spoil all the love scenes so I’ll leave it at that!
I was really amazed at this movie because of the shear amount of effects, wrecks and words and poses they managed to pack into a mere 97 minutes. All the actors looked great and especially the two super-albinos who are role models to albinos everywhere, who have been getting a bad rap as effeminate sissies ever since Powder, but these guys kick ass! for about 20 minutes until they get killed.
I don’t recall any other impressive stuff to watch out for, although the scene where the 1000 TV moniters featuring Neon flipping the bird was well done.
Altogether, my score on this movie, on a scale of 1 to 10 stars, 10 being the best, I’d give it an enthusiatic thumbs up!
I didn’t stay to watch the preview of Matrix III Re-reloaded, but I think its safe to say it was an action-packed 2 minutes of jerky fast edits of yet more fighting and wreckes and inscrutable dialog that was well worth sitting through 15 minutes of self-congratulatory credits where you can see who the 3rd asst. to the 3rd asst. DP was and who catered the movie, accompanied by a deafeningly loud and rambunctious rap tune.
I didn’t wait myself, but lots of slack-jawed, popcorn and Goober covered, pudgy individuals with Matrix and StarWars t-shirts did and one I talked to afterwards said that Neon is Christ’s second coming, so I gather the trailer rocked, both in the hard and steady categories.
All in all, I’d say go see this movie because its only going to be playing for the next 20 weeks or so and you may want to see it 30-40 times to catch every nuance of Keyanu’s performance! Until next week, May the Force Be With You and The Truth is Out There and whatever the Matrix catchphrase is, I didn’t see the poster, but I’m sure its something pithy like that!
-Jeremy