It was something like visiting an old friend and observing how things had changed while keeping something of the endearing past alive. Or as she said (paraphrased): "Some things change, while some things do not". Precisely my feelings after watching the The Matrix Reloaded.

I'm so glad I didn't watch it on a very small 16 inch screen. According to me, the whole success (and hence the governing principle) of the Matrix movies is that they've been able to throw in all these abstruse concepts that don't quite make a lot of sense while one is watching the film unfold, but the danger to the commercial returns that this apparent profundity may cause is offset by the stunning effects that continues to hack a path in unknown territory. Which means I can walk into a screen, not expect to understand every piece of the story, but be immersed in the visual outrageousness, go home, read the script and various explanatory texts and arrive at an acceptable interpretation for myself. Good enough, I say. Hence the whole point of not watching the film with a free copy but on a monitor. The whole impact of the visuals is deprecated corresponding to a loss of every square inch than was originally intended.

I was happy to see Neo still a little baffled and not completely cocky and confident as it seemed he would be at the end of the first Movie. The usual collection (of old favourites as it now seems) were there: More glimmer in Trinity's costume, more black-Smiths, ripple of a shock wave - this time in a container truck than a building in a collision with a chopper, the spoon, the wine-coloured sofa with bits of stuffing visible and more bringing back from the dead. We had our eyes peeled for a glimpse of Trinity typing "ssh" and "nmap". Yep, I caught it. What colossal fun it all is!

I was just thinking that there are a few things that we'll be able to tell our children and even with the usual expectations of the future at that time being more strange than we can imagine today, we've seen a few things that will make their eyes pop out. The audacity of the September 11 attacks in a political sense perhaps, but undoubtedly, whovever sees the Matrix movies will be inundated by stories from their grandmas and grandpas about how it blew our collective imaginations then. And I think they'll understand.