Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

The media critic on CBS Sunday Morning -- whose name I can never remember, despite the fact that he's been doing the reviews on that show for years and I've watched them for as long as he's been doing them -- reviewed The Matrix Reloaded this morning. He described the movie as one of "the most pretentious" action films he's ever seen. That doesn't bode well, and it seems to reflect some other reviews I've read. Virtually all of them agree that the film spends a great deal of time in talk-mode, with Laurence Fishburne spouting a lot more of the prophetic, mystical stuff from the first movie.

I'm one who didn't find the original Matrix all that interesting from the philosophical standpoint. The ideas expressed in its running time are pretty much covered in any standard, college-level introductory philosophy class, and all the Christ-like imagery got a bit heavy-handed. And I don't think the film improves on repeat viewings, once the "Wow"-factor falls off. So, if I'm the one person in the universe who thinks that of the big SF films to come out in 1999, that The Phantom Menace is the superior film, well, I'll just suffer in my loneliness.

I plan on seeing Reloaded, but it's not terribly high on my list of priorities. I'm much more jazzed about seeing X2 tomorrow.