The Matrix and its ill-formed progeny

I saw The Matrix in the theater when it came out. I hated it. The story is dark, depressing, filled with nonsense philosophy, terrible dialogue, ACTING!, and there are plot holes aplenty. It's got loads of "style", but that's about all it's got. I didn't bother to see the even worse sequels when they came out but did eventually see them on video.

Since then, I've developed a sort of hate-watch habit. If one of the Matrix movies is on TV, I'll watch it for a while, while shaking my head in disbelief at how bad it is.

AMC had the The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded on today so I watched some of both. One of the things that really bugs me is that once Neo is made, more or less, into Superman at the end of the first movie, there's no real point to ANY of the subsequent fight scenes in the sequels. Watching Neo and Agent Smith punch each other to absolutely no effect gets really old, really fast.

After seeing the first movie, before the second movie came out, I presumed that the over-the-top gun battles and fist fights would disappear in favor of something more suited to what Neo's abilities had become, some sort of supernatural, cybernetic, software combat. Nope. With a stunning lack of imagination, they just had Neo fight more guys at the same time. Sure, the fight scenes are well choreographed and executed, but there are no stakes whatsoever. And it doesn't make sense for indestructible entities to just keep pummeling and shooting at each other. (Ahem. Did you hear that Man of Steel?)

Thus ends my rant over a 15 year old movie franchise.