I saw Matrix 2 yesterday with Janet, a Korean American girl who said (much later in the day): "I don't want to have children because I think I'm too selfish to think about anyone else first, and I'm also really scared I'll mess up my kids and they'll turn into demon spawn."

So for anyone who has said to me, "You'll feel differently when you have kids of your own" -- "Oh yeah? What if I have demon spawn children? Then what? You expect me to love them then? Yah, didn't think so."

Now, onto the inevitable rant about the Matrix, which you don't want to read if you hate spoilers.

I don't mind that it didn't make sense. But did it also have to be so boring?

Seriously. I like mumbo jumbo philosophical meta-musings as much as any humanities major, and I like the fact that the Wachowski brothers think the American public can handle it. But. Did it the blabbering really need to be delivered in 5-minute long lectures by characters we've never met, who don't have an ounce of personality, and about whom we could care less than, say, George Bush does about the environment?

Although the Architect was pretty bad, the guy whose name I can't remember but who delivered his awful, awful lines in a really fake French accent was horrid. It's not that I didn't understand what he was saying, it's that it had no bearing on the storyline. The chocolate cake-orgasm bit was supposed to be precious, I suppose, but what purpose did it serve except to titillate? Ditto the Monica Belluci character, whose white rubber outfit made her look like the S&N nurse from Pat Califia's Macho Sluts (shout out to RosaG for enduring that seminar with me). The whole thing with the "kees me like you voood kees her" was again, nothing but mere titillation and just plain STOOPID. I like my kissy Keanu scenes as much as anybody, but even I was cringing here -- almost as much as I cringed during the "you're so soft. not like the sand. the sand is rough. not like you" Anakin-Amidala scene in Star Wars 2.

Scores of reviewers have derided the Zion orgy scene, which of course only serves as a backdrop for Neo and Trinity's baum chicka baum baum moment. I have nothing against N and T getting it on; in fact, it's important to establish a believable intimacy between those two characters. Hey, I'm a softie -- it's a tender moment, and I liked the sweetness of it. But I couldn't help wondering why they chose a freakin' DIAS in a HALLWAY for their special moment, which the camerawork emphasizes by tracking backwards through three archways in the last seconds of the scene. I mean, really.

At this point, you may be saying, "So what? I went for the fight scenes and the cool costumes, and there were plenty of both." Okay, let's talk about those fight scenes. The much plugged Neo vs. 100 Smiths scene (the first one, in the playground), for example. Technically brilliant, as before, with some fun little moments here and there, like the agents all piling on top of Neo a la football -- excuse me, American football.

But whereas every fight between Neo and Smith was fraught with tension and dynamism in the first Matrix, this one, despite its pumped-up CGI, was dull. Dull dull dull. When Neo fought in the first Matrix, there was an element of fear, anxiety and excitement in the scene. Real fake blood was spilled. The thuds to the ground seemed to actually hurt the guy. The hatred was palpable. The enemy seemed real, and intensely personal.

In Matrix 2, no blood spills. No bones break. Neo is never hurt, and in fact can throw off 50 Smiths who are piled on top of him. So we ask, "What is the freaking point?" Halfway through the first fight scene in the playground, despite the still-cool 360-tracking and the billowing greatcoat that Neo wears so beautifully, I was ready for it to end. It's so clear that Neo isn't going to demolish the baddies, you wonder why the hell he doesn't just up and outta there and be done with it already.

As for the duplicating Smith himself? I personally think Hugo Weaving is the cat's meow (see Proof, see Priscilla in the Desert). He was wonderful in the original Matrix so I guess the Wachowskis thought that multiplying wonderful by 100 equals something beyond words. Oh, Brothers W! I think it was the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter who summed up the problem the best: 100 Agent Smiths together don't have a tenth of the charisma that one Agent Smith had. Smith is unplugged and on rampage -- what does that say about the nature of the matrix? The nature of programs? If the Brothers W had spent the time they wasted on characters like French-spewing guy on exploring how the hell Smith could be unplugged and even more powerful than before, they would have had an adversary worthy of Neo. Instead, expensive CGI duplication resulted in a watered-down Agent Smith, which no one in the audience wanted.

What do we want, Brothers W? Well, it's too late to tell you, since you're already done filming, but I'll let you know anyway. We want some storytelling. We want characters that we feel for. We do not want jerky, draggy, Philosophy 101 explication, we want you to go back to grade school and relearn the "show, not tell" method of writing. We don't mind being jerked around, contrary to what you may think. No, we want to be led astray, we don't mind red herrings. The "Reloaded" theory explained to Neo was interesting, and the decision he makes spoke to us. So give us more of that. Give us characters we care about, let them evince emotions so that we can care about them. The most effective parts of the movie were Neo and Trinity's scenes together, because we love the ideas of the Matrix, but we need a soft touch sometimes to balance out the hardware. After all, we're only human.