The Last Two Matrix Movies

I really enjoyed the original The Matrix. My parents didn’t want me seeing ‘R’ movies when it came out so I didn’t see it until maybe four years after its release and its style was already popping up in other movies, but it still amazed me. The cinematography, the dialogue, the action, the music, the freaking EVERYTHING. It was such an amazingly well put together movie, and then I discovered the philosophy people came up with it and I fell in love with it all over again, devouring the papers like nothing. The only things that keep it from being my favorite is that I think it’s almost cliché to rank it so and The Princess Bride and Fight Club just resonate with me on a more personal level.

So, like quite a few other people, I awaited the sequels with great anticipation and met their eventual release with similar disappointment. Where did the magic go? How did the ball get dropped so hard-core? I’m sure any number of people would be more than willing to give you their take. Well, I’m one of them and here’s mine. More than anything else, the last two Matrices lost me on their fights. Sure, the dialogue lacked the luster it did in the original and there was that bizarre orgy scene in Zion, but the fights were the hardest swinging hammer on that coffin. It took me a while to put my finger on this too. The choreography was still as impressive and melee weapons were even introduced. What was the bleeding problem? And there was the answer. There was no blood, no result to the fighting. Neo fights the Merovingian’s death squad with swords, sai, maces and a whole pile of other cutting weapons, and nothing happened. The warriors just kind of fell down. It was even more apparent in the first fight between Neo and Agent Smith’s horde in Reloaded. Neo is getting pummeled and then turns around and beats the Smiths with a sign post that still has concrete on its base. One guy gets his sunglasses broken! They’re hardly even dirty at the end of that foray! They all just watch Neo fly off at the end and mill about, nary a scratch or bruise or broken pair of sunglasses. Even the one Twin (the two of them being the one of the movies’ few highlights) whose arm is turned into a bloody mash by Trinity simply regenerates it by reverting to his ghost form. In the original we had people getting tired, dirty and bloody. In Reloaded and Revolutions we had nothing.

I realize that this is very stylized fighting, but come on. The fights need to actually cause something to happen.