On Wednesday night i ventured out of my apartment in search of some intense sci-fi action on the big screen. I found a theatre that was showing X-Men at 7:30 so i drove out there and walked in at around 7:00. I asked the girl if i could buy a ticket and she said "For Martix?" I said no, that i wasn't going to buy the ticket today for a friday release but the girl said no, that Matrix was opening that night at ten. Understand that i have no TV and usually don't read the newspaper (except on-line) so i was unaware of the odd release date of the sequel. So despite being sleep deprived from the last two nights, i put my cash on the table and prepared myself for a late night, double feature picture show.

I wandered into the X-Men theatre and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was pretty much empty. Me and a couple of punks, one or two metal heads and three scattered comic book geeks. It was nice to be able to streach out and have room to breathe while totally avoiding all obligation to listen to everyone else's comments and make-out sessions.

And it was a good way to start out an evening. Despite the strange and unexplained PowerAide/Matrix commercial in the opening previews, X-Men started off strong with Nightcrawler going apeshit on a bunch of Secret Service guys and basically justifying whatever money was spent on effects in the first ten minutes. After that it was all pure fun. Brian Singer did his usual stellar job of directing and cutting that we came to expect after Usual Suspects and the actors did a fine job as well. While there were a couple of scenes where one felt that the movie could have picked up a little more than it did, by and large it was a great way to spend an evening.

After making a quick run to the bathroom i dashed across the theatre to the Matrix screening. (for this being totally unplanned it came together nicely with only fifteen minutes downtime between X-Men ending and Matrix beginning).

I was far less lucky with this crowd but what do you expect? it was opening night. The room was about 80% full and were from all walks of life which can either mean that Matrix is something we all have in common or it can mean that a lot of people had nowhere else to go on a Wednesday night, me included.

The movie started up with the same previews, including the idiotic PowerAide commercial (several members of the audience booed as the 'Agent' came on the screen and told us to drink PowerAide) I heard a couple of scattered whispers that asked "why would we drink PowerAide if we're in the Matrix? it wouldn't help our real bodies at all!" and "why would Matrix fans do anything an Agent says?" My faith in the crowd rose immediately. Some people are as cynical as i am! Woo-Hoo!

So then the Matrix started. I was previously un-aware of this, but there is such a thing as too damned much bullet time. Basically it seemed like they wrote a story for one sequel, but then found that they had enough money to make two, and so they just cut the story in half and interspersed a lot of pointless slo-mo and, for some reason, a musical number.

Don't get me wrong, there were a few segments where i was glued to the screen and lost in the magic of the choreography and digital effects, but by and large it was kind of a waste.

driving home at around 1:00 a.m. it occurred to me that usually after a night like this we would all go out for pie and coffee and discuss what we had seen. I miss that and i think it would have made this evening complete, sleep deprivation or no.

ah nostalgia.

Hit me back on this if you want to discuss the films or go out for movies and pie.



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