Movie	Extras
Audio	Video

I bought the movie in Korea, and as such, it’s region 3.  It’s the same as in every other region.

disk 1:
Movie
For those who don’t like talky reviews, here’s basically what I say in the next 2000 words: awesome action, some good CG, some bad CG, nice car chase, stupid philosophy, more contradictions, annoying dialogue, but ultimately a fun ride.  For those who like talky reviews, enjoy!

Unfortunately this review is written with the knowledge of the third part.  I meant to write a review before seeing the third part but I never got around to it.  I’d thought about the second part so I know what I wanted to say before watching part 3.  I’ll try to take away the third part of my mind (good god, do I ever) while I write the review.

The movie rocks.  Who cares about the pseudo-philosophical crap the movie spouts?  In the end, it’s all a bunch of loose ends, which the third movie will have to deal with (but it didn’t!), so in the end the questions and ideas are quite intriguing.  The French dude, the Oracle’s ‘advice’ and all the renegade programs are all things that are quite original and make the movie worth watching a second time.  There’s a lot of information so you always miss something the first time around.  The Architect does say something but it’s buried under 50-dollar words and doesn’t add anything to the philosophy of the Matrix.  All he does is give out exposition.  All of my major concerns from the first movie (here, look for the paragaph with the spoilers) aren’t addressed in this movie.  Like I said before, the first flick was eye candy and nothing more.  Its fake, brainy mumbo jumbo amounted to nothing in the end.  The same goes for this movie.  It takes the pseudo-philosophy and turns it up a fake notch.  All the apparent depth makes the movie more intriguing.  I kept wondering how the Wachowskis would answer all the questions in the third part they put forth in the second part.  Unfortunately, they didn’t.

(It’s time for the ‘Matrix’ spoiler paragraph that addresses all my problems with the movie.  You’ve been warned.)
The internal logic of the series is actually consistent in the movie but I still have a few problems.  (Athough, I have to admid that Morpheus doesn’t make much sense.  Case in point: Morpheus, talking to the French dude, says that everything begins with choice.  The pretty much goes against everything he’s said before.  If he’s changed his mind, then he says these lines later in the movie: ‘There are no accidents’  ‘I do not see chance,’  ‘I see providence.’  ‘I believe it is our fate to be here.  It is our destiny.’  Nice logic, dude.)  The Architect is the problem.  Without him, there wouldn’t be any loose ends, but there would still be the hope of further explanations.  First of all, the guy says nothing.  He just says there were other Matrixes (Matrices…?) before.  If he would’ve said that and nothing else I would’ve been happy.  Instead, he goes on to explain all the history of the thing and how, blah, blah, blah…  Okay, so that’s not too bad.  This is the biggest problem I have: people accept the reality they’re given, there’s no way out of it.  If you look at the colour red and from the time you’re born you’re told it’s blue, then for the rest of your life you’ll call it blue.  Even if other people say it’s another colour there’s nothing you can do about it.  Same with reality.  Pretend we’re really living in a Matrix.  If you don’t like your life, there’s nothing you can do about it.  If the world is perfect, how can you not like it or accept it?  Even if you truly believe this world is not the ‘real’ world, what can you do?  Apparently, you wake up from your sleep, although that’s pretty slim.  All the machines have to do is fill people’s brains full of endorphines, that’ll do the trick.  The humans won’t care about anything else.  Also, why give the people a Matrix to begin with?  Why not just keep people comatose and feed off their energy?  (More on this later.)

From the Architect, you also learn that the problem is choice.  The Architect can’t figure humans out so the Oracle was created to understand them.  Her job is to get The One back to the source, where he can choose between saving the human race or going back to the Matrix, which would annihilate the human race.  The movie makes sense by having the Architect analysing everything so that it ends up being a mathematical equation (although that suggests that AI doesn’t exist), but it also means the machines are so stupid.  If the Oracle understands humans, she can tell the Architect that The One might choose to go back to the Matrix, in which case that particular choice is another variable in the equation.  Six reiterations and the Architect still can figure it out?  Pretty stupid machine.  I suppose you can say that humans can’t be understood by machines, so the movie makes sense, but then how could the Oracle be so accurate in leading The One back to the source?  You can talk about probability, but then probability implies choice, which brings me to my next paragraph.

(next paragraph continues my spoilers)
Moving on, choice and determinism are mutually exclusive.  The Oracle’s speech in the park (right before a super-cool fight) is all nice and good but she talks too much and kicks the door wide open for any first-year philosophy student to debunk.  If she can see the future, then she knows her choices.  If she can’t see one of her choices, then she can’t see the future.  It’s as simple as that.  The Oracle says ‘We’re all here to do we’re all here to do’.  That means everything has a purpose, and so there’s a design to the universe.  That line also means there’s a purpose behind everything, and so there’s a governing force.  Therefore, no choice.  She says this in the Matrix, so either it applies to the real world, in which case the machines are right and it means humans don’t have choice, or it applies to the Matrix, in which case the Oracle is completely useless and serves no purpose because the real world has nothing to do with the Matrix.  Next, she says ‘We can never see past the choices we don’t understand’.  This promptly contradicts what she just said a few minutes before because she mentions choice.  So, let’s just pretend we can choose.  Personally, I can’t see past the choices I’ve thoroughly thought out, let alone the ones I don’t understand.  Maybe it’s a Matrix thing.

(one last thought)
Also, and I just realized this now, but wouldn’t the energy required to keep all machines going and all the equipment from the Matrix and pods for the humans far exceed the energy humans would produce?  Oh, yeah, I remember something about ‘fusion’ from the first movie.  Um… well, given the amount of machines that exist (one for every man, woman and child in Zion, plus all the non-sentinel machines not hunting down the human race, which form of energy seems more powerful: the fusion or the battery-people?

Taking a hint from the Insultingly Stupid Movie Phyics page, I’m taking this to my calculator.  (I’m not saying the movie is stupid, gee, I wouldn’t do that, I’m just really curious about this now now.)  I don’t want to prove the silly physics, I just want to show the negligible amount of energy humans make.  The first movie says that the human body produces some 25,000 BTUs of energy (or, for some reason, in one of the featurettes on disk 2 of this set, they say 12,000 BTUs).  Now, firstly, this may sound impressive but they don’t say for how long.  Is it per hour?  Per day?  At any one time?  The second law of thermodynamics says you can’t create energy, and a 2000-calorie diet should equel roughly 8000 BTUs (1 BTU being about 1055 (kilo)calories, or, conversely, 1 (kilo)calorie equaling 0.000,948 BTUs), so their number would mean, what, every 3 days?  I can’t forget heat from the sun, lights, other people’s body heat, etc…  I doubt that would cover the extra energy, but I’ll be nice and assume the 25,000 BTUs is per day.  Regardless, one BTU is the energy needed to raise one pound of water one degree Farenheit, and is equal to 1055.056 joules.  One joule is the energy needed to raise one normal-sized apple (102g) one metre off the ground.  Now, with simple calculations, 25,000 BTUs are about 27 million joules, which is about the energy required to carry a 3-ton SUV about one kilometre.  (If I’ve made a mistake, please tell me, I’d really like to know if my brain is still physics-savvy.)  Now, that might seem like a lot of energy, but how much do you think one of those sentinels weigh, and how much do they travel?  One kilometer in one day is not far, if it weighs 3 tons.  There are many people but there are many more machines needed to pump everything, move bodies around, process the energy, recharge batteries, etc…  Not to mention the sentinels.  They travel really fast and I’m sure their cells need a lot of energy.  Even if you change it to 25,000 BTUs per hour, it’s still not much energy of all those machines.  So, I ask again: which is more powerful, the fusion or the human-batteries?

Disregarding that entirely, when Neo says machines need humans, so machines can’t eradicate the human race, the Architect replies that there are certain levels of existence the machines can accept.  So… um… why the humans?  Ultimately, they’re not necessary.  Why not live off the fusion power, finish off the human race and eliminate the possibility of humans mucking everything up?  Well, I suppose the Wachowskis didn’t put as much thought into the movie as some people think they did.
(End of spoilers.)

So once again, I’m left with wondering what the movie is about?  Well, like the first flick, the answer comes back: popcorn movie!  The budget was about twice as much as the first movie, so what does that mean?  Cool CG effects.  Okay, so some digital doubles look really cartoon-like, but those twins and that car chase were just so cool.  The fights are so nifty it’s incredible.  That fight in the castle is awesome.  Okay, so that fight with the 100 Agent Smiths looks fake but it’s still pretty nifty.  The car chase is one of the best car chases ever.  One thing that really disappointed me was the use of the twins.  Those are such innovative and menacing bad guys and (okay, another spoiler…) they just had to die in such a silly way.  They could’ve just phased out a micro-second before the explosion and survived, but that was probably not convenient for the rest of the movie and the third part so they had to have a silly death, although it did come after a kick-ass car chase scene. (Okay, end of spoilers...)

Okay, so the movie isn’t perfect: Morpheus gets more annoying by the word and the script could use a major overhaul.  Additionally, Hugo Weaving is the only person who seems to be having any fun.  Everybody else broods around, thinking this dialogue means something.  Another thing: when Neo and Morpheus are fighting all the Smiths in the building near the end of the movie, why do the Smiths wait until the end of the fight to take out their guns?

Watching this movie in theatres, I realized that Jet Li would’ve been perfect for the part of Neo.  I mean, the wires and the CG make Keanu Reeves look pretty nice, but you can still see that he hasn’t had much martial arts training in his life.  I started wondering what Jet Li would look like in that trenchcoat, fighting all those guys and thought, ‘Whoa!’.  If Yuen Woo-Ping (and Yuen Cheung-Yan and Dion Lam) could make Keanu Reeves look this good, imagine what he could’ve done with a real martial artist.

The fight scenes are the best fight scenes to come out of Hollywood.  It’s that simple.  They have millions of dollars to make them look better than they normally would have but that’s Hollywood for ya.  Yuen Woo-Ping does an awesome job with all the actors, and they fight their way through many bad guys.  Although (and I have to have a problem with everything in this movie), Collin Chou is not used enough.  He fights Neo, but not much else.  Come on, he held his own against Jet Li in ‘Dr. Wai and the Scripture Without Words’ and ‘My Father is a Hero’, and was better than the star in ‘Red Wolf’.

I think I’ve said enough.  One last thing is that seeing this movie for the second time on DVD really made realize how crappy some of the CGI were.  Not just the body doubles, but especially during the chase scene. That’s just a technical question, though, and doesn’t take away from the movie.  The movie does have its flaws, but I’m willing to disregard the politics and other things because the action is so well done.  Hey, it’s a fun ride.  The first movie is basically half setup, half payoff, I said, but this movie is pretty much all payoff.  The setup is made in the first movie, so the characters and story are already set up.  That only leaves time for action.  The ending is also extremely intriguing, leading the way perfectly for the last installment.

disk 2:
Preloaded
This is basically a 22-minute EPK.  Apart from the Wachowskis, all the cast and crew talk about how great it is working on the movie, how great the script is, how great the action is, how great…  You see footage of everything they’re talking about, which is more interesting than any of the interview bits.  The effects crew gets to talk about the effects work they did.  Mr. Reeves, on set, greets you to day 16 of the burly brawl.  One action scene taking more than 16 days is a lot.  You also see a few of the at least 47 takes of ‘Trinity Falls’.   To be fair, even with all the annoying this-is-so-great sound bites, it’s much better than your usual EPK and it’s much better than the ‘doc’ in the first part’s DVD.

Matrix Unfolds
This is about 5 minutes, 20 seconds.  It basically talks about how the Matrix universe evolves and how it, well, unfolds.  It taslk about the ‘in-between’ movie information.  It’s mostly about ‘The Animatrix’ and the video game an how they relate to the universe, and about how they’ll make the two final movies together.  You also get more self-congratulatory sound bites.  It’s a bit thin but you’ve always got some nice behind the scenes footage to fall back on.  This really feels like a promo piece more than anything else, though.

Freeway Chase
This is some 30 minutes and 45 seconds long and is a great piece.  It may feel a little EPKish but you’ve got penty of behind the scenes footage.  Of all the bits of interview and animatics, the behind the footage stuff is the best.  You see all of the major cast and crew (except the Wachowskis and Keanu Reeves) talking about the shooting and, in the case of the actors, the driving course.  You see footage of that course, which is rather interesting.  You see footage of them building the mile and a half of roads, where they eventually filmed the car chase.  For half an hour, you’re thrust into the car chase.  The most frustrating thing is that they go on at length about how great the stunt is where Agent Smith jumps from car to car, but they don’t show it clearly in the featurette.  The stunt, like the movie, is shown, but it’s chopped up into so many pieces.  It’s fun, though, and has a lot of neat behind the scenes footage.

Get Me an Exit
This is 9 minutes and 47 seconds long and talks about the advertising related to the movie.  The first assistant director on parts 2 and 3 directed the Powerade, cell phone, etc… commercials, and so, in conjuction with various design people, talk about how they were inspired.  One really silly thing is they talk at length about the phone but they don’t actually show you the actual phone.  You see the phone from the movie and from the ad but you don’t see one real phone.  This is completely useless.  It’s basically a 10-minute commercial in the guise of a featurette.

Enter the Matrix: The Game
As you might expect, this talks about the game.  Now, at 28 minutes, 10 seconds, this is a little more than a commercial.  Okay, so I’ve never played the game, I don’t really care much about the game and I’ve read the game isn’t all that good.  So, without seeming biased, I didn’t care much for this extra.  It is sort of interesting but it’s nothing more than an EPK for the game.  When Joel Silver says something like ‘when the game comes out…’ you know it’s not going to be too exciting.  It does go into detail.  It talks about the characters and the story, so I’m sure fans will enjoy it.  Although, I have to say, the DVD came out about 5 or 6 months after the game, so nothing here in terms of sneek-peek excitement is gone.  Not a very smart way to do the feature.  Seems to me, looking at this thing, that all the stuff the Wachowskis didn’t think was important  in the movie was put in the video game.  Not to me mean or anything.

‘The Animatrix’ Trailer
This is about 4 ½ minutes long.  It’s actually a pretty good trailer.  There’s some narrator introducing ‘The Animatrix’ to you, then you see clips of all the different shorts.  Very interesting.

MTV Movie Awards
This is about 9 ½ minutes long and is the introduction to the 2003 MTV Movie Awards.  As usual, some of the jokes are silly, but there are still a lot of really funny jokes.  The funniest one is Will Ferrell imitating the Architect.

DVD-ROM
Web Links
I didn’t even bother with this because they’re probably all dead now anyways, but conceivably at one point in the past you could get information about various ‘Matrix’-related things.

Audio
This is in Dolby 5.1 and it’s very good.  During the fight scenes you get many surrounds and things like that.  It’s a very nice ride.  In the explosion scenes, you hear it at the front, then it moves to the back, all the time the subwoofer booming.  The rears are also used for some ambience, but mostly for score.  All the dialogue is clear, all the effects are clear and the score is balanced with everything.  If you want loud noises, with very good separation and some good range, then this soundtrack is for you.

Video
2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen.  If you’re not happy with the picture, you’re probably perpetually grumpy.  There are no specks, scratches, no compression artifacts, no nothing.  I didn’t notice anything wrong with the picture.  The colours in the Matrix are sort of de-saturated with this green hue, and outside the Matrix, there’s a nice blue shade everywhere.  It’s all perfectly rendered and the contrast is awesome.  The detail and clarity is sensational.  Awesome picture.

20/2/2005