For true Matrix fans only
The other day, while channel surfing, I came across a movie called Under Seige 2. While I am not particularly proud that I watched about 15 minutes of this terrible Steven Segal movie, it did bring an important question to mind. What, pray, is the difference between this debacle of a sequel, and that other dissapointment, "Matrix Reloaded". While it is true that the visual FX of US2 don't come anywhere near the spectacular spectacles of Reloaded, storywise, both movies are as hollow as an unloaded cannon. The comparision with a cannon seems even more apt when you realise that both were full-length motion pictures without any substance whatsoever.
While travelling to work this morning,
sam pointed out another interesting standard for comparision, the X-Men series. Consider this, the first movie in both series served to set up a premise. The Matrix propounded the theory that we were all in a machine induced deep sleep living our whole lives trapped in the illusions created by our own minds. X-Men on the other hand, talked about a spurt of evolution which resulted in the creation of a new subrace of humans (mutants). While x2 served to move the story forward by revealing what we had been promised (wolverine's past), matrix reloaded sinmply bombarded us with visual effects (admittedly, they were really cool, but that's not the point). Consequently, reloaded ended up feeling a lot like under seige 2, a sequel for the sake of a sequel.
I believe that one of the reasons that the fans seem to have let the wachowski brothers off the hook so easily is that they expect a strong story from revolutions. Visual fx aside, the main reason i like the matrix series is because of the concept it brought to the fore. After all, how many of us haven't thought or wished that our whole life was a very bad/good dream. And as Morpheus said in the The Matrix, "Is it so hard to believe...".
