I saw the Matrix Reloaded the other day and won’t hesitate to say (even if the hatemail starts spewing in) that I found it disappointing. I’m in good company in saying so, IMHO.

You’re not supposed to be able to follow it unless you were into the first Matrix film… but I was. And it is de rigeur to dis Keanu Reeves… but I find his laconic minimalist non-acting has a sort of appeal. So it’s not that. I just found its plotting incoherent and arbitrary. Sorry, those failings offend my minimal expectations of a film, and no amount of <a href=”http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/30747.html

“>hacker cred (The Register)

or rock-’em-sock-’em action can compensate. Although it is tempting to hope for a coherent and overpoweringly subversive paradigm-buster to be this popular (“The left has been content to release memes into their own marginal subcultures for far to long. The Matrix unleashes memes into the heart of pop culture…”), it won’t amount to anything.

I’m nagged by the thought, though, that I would have grasped the logic better if I hadn’t been severely jetlagged (I saw it in SF where I was out for a conference) at the time. And perhaps I would grasp its logic better if I saw it again. But I couldn’t put up with that.

I did sort of like the Agent Smiths, although I was preoccupied throughout with what relationship he/they have to other contemporary Men in Black like Smith and Jones. By the way, I find credible the speculation that Smith could turn out to be an ally of The One (anything is possible in these scripts, right?) in the third episode due out this fall. Which (sigh) I’ll probably see, especially because it’ll be the first feature film out simultaneously on IMAX format, I read.

As an aside, I knew he looked familiar, but it was so out of context (wait; maybe not) that I hadn’t realized until I happened upon it here that Councilman West was a cameo appearance of none other than Cornel West.