Knowles: 'Reloaded' drowns in effects
Editor's Note: CNN Access is a regular feature on CNN.com providing interviews with newsmakers from around the world.
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Knowles: "What we have in this film is just effects, effects, effects. And that tends to be the centerpiece of what we're watching as opposed to serving the story."
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Four years in the making, 'The Matrix Reloaded' is full of special effects and high-speed action. CNN's Daryn Kagan reports
CNN's Fredricka Whitfield talks to Web movie guru Harry Knowles about 'The Matrix Reloaded'
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(CNN) -- The first of the summer blockbusters is coming to a theater near you. "The Matrix Reloaded" hits the theaters Thursday in the widest domestic movie release ever.
The second chapter of the "Matrix" trilogy is filled with special effects, of course. But is it a must-see for moviegoers?
Offering his take from Austin, Texas, is Harry Knowles, creator of one of the most widely read movie Web sites, aintitcoolnews.com. He has been named one of the 100 most powerful people in the movie industry.
Knowles spoke to CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield Thursday about "Reloaded."
The film is a production of Warner Brothers, which is owned by CNN's parent company, AOL Time Warner.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: So, I understand you do not like this movie. Why? What could be wrong?
HARRY KNOWLES, AINTITCOOLNEWS.COM: Well, it's not so much that I don't like it. I like the film. The problem is that it's not as great as the movie was allegedly supposed to be. I mean, producer Joel Silver was going out saying that the bar had been raised so high that there is no bar anymore. And he was pumping up the expectations for this film, which, since 1999, have been skyrocketing. And ultimately, when you really get down to it, it's not as good a film as the first one, which doesn't mean this is a bad film. It just means that you should set your expectations much lower than they've been being put at.
WHITFIELD: Well, aren't the expectations that the special effects are really the main attraction? And it looks like there are special effects.
KNOWLES: Well, the special effects are certainly a reason to see this movie. I mean, it is very much all about eye candy. The problem, though, is that, unfortunately, a lot of what's going on in this film has to do with the characters losing their place and not being as cool as they used to be.
And one of the key problems with the movie is the first film certainly had eye candy, but because it was at a lower budget, it held so much in darkness and there was so much mystery involved that what we have in this film is, you know, just effects, effects, effects. And that tends to be the centerpiece of what we're watching as opposed to serving the story, which is what happened in the first film.
Knowles runs aintitcoolnews.com
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WHITFIELD: But think, too, about these dynamics: In the first film, the folks were not really flooding the theaters going to see this movie. It seems as though this movie really won its appeal once it came out on DVD and video. Then suddenly there was this surge of popularity of this movie. As a result of what people saw in the first movie, it is expected that this is going to lure a great number of folks.
KNOWLES: Absolutely. Before the first film's release, there wasn't a lot of hype about the film. I ran a script review of the movie about two years before it had come out back in 1997, where I said that it had the potential to be a gigantic cult science fiction film. And sure enough when they made the movie, that's what we got.
What's happened since 1999 is you've wound up with thousands of Web sites being created that are taking apart the philosophy and, you know, the mattocks behind "The Matrix," and turning it then into an almost cultish religion in a lot of ways. And what's happened in this film is they have decided to up all of that stuff, say, to the tenth degree. Much like they've done just about everything else in this movie, they've upped the kung fu to the tenth degree, they've upped everything to the tenth degree, and they've certainly lost a certain amount of humanity in doing that.
