10: The original writer of the movie completely divested himself from the film. This should be the first sign that a movie is going to suck. Any writer would be ecstatic to have one of their ideas made into a big budget, studio, film. It means a substantial paycheck and validation as a professional. Alan Moore saw the direction the Wachowski's were taking his idea and walked away from the project in totality. The studio should have seen this as a giant red flag and shit-canned the film. But no, they figured the Wachowski name would be enough to carry this piece of crap. Attention everyone at Warner Brothers...I hope you get STDs.

9: I figured out the TRUTH about this film.

Sometime during the making of The Matrix: Reloaded Larry Wachowski left his wife, started dating a dominatrix, wearing women's underwear, and from all appearances...started taking women's hormones.(click the picture to see the larger image) This movie is not about political revolution, it's Larry Wachowski's cry for sexual acceptance. This, I believe, is why Alan Moore ran away from this movie so fast that flames shot out of his ass. The Character V is the master of the movie. He wears a stylized gimp mask, has a secret dungeon where he keeps people, and he likes inflicting pain up close and personal, which is why he carries knives instead of guns. The second most important tertiary character, the TV station manager, is a gay masochist. The entire movie is about people outside of the sexual norm striking out against the sexual standard. I really don't care what fetishes people have. If you want someone to tie you up and shove popsicles up your ass...well good for you, it's just not for me. But if I wanted to watch a movie about someone's cry for sexual acceptance I'd go watch brokeback mountain or my own private Idaho, not something that is sold to the masses as a popcorn-munching, summer, action flick.

8: COHESION. The entire middle third of the movie had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film. Oh sure it had some minor sub-plot points, but those could have been covered in about 7 minutes or so. For anyone looking into becoming a writer do the world a favor and read Aristotle's: Poetics. You don't even have to buy the text here's a link to it online. Aristotle set down the basic framework for the three act story structure. Here it is in it's simplest form: ACT ONE: Introduce the characters and set the protagonist on their journey. ACT TWO: Set roadblocks to be overcome. Build antagonist/protagonist struggle. Act two should end with the protagonist seemingly being unable to accomplish the task and defeat the the antagonist. ACT THREE: The final confrontation between antagonist and protagonist, the outcome, and then tying up loose ends and sub-plots. This movie sucked bad enough that it botched up the easiest ending ever. Instead of V killing the president that's been oppressing him, one of the president's staff does it in front of V and then he battles a group of nameless thugs. It was the shittiest ending ever because the good guy didn't defeat the bad guy. The good guy let another bad guy beat the ultimate bad guy and looked impotent, as a do-gooder, in the process. The best part of the ending was the V died, which should mean no possibility of a sequel.

7: The fancy looking domino scene. What the fuck was the point of this? Sure it's visually appealing but if you step into the reality of the movie you have to think 'Is this guy fighting for freedom or proving that British guys are better at dominoes than those wacky Asians?' Honeslty. He's about to walk into the big showdown with the big bad guy and he decides to play with his toys? Really? Oh sure other movies have used this trick before: The Crow and Daredevil come to mind, but compared to this piece of schlock they did it tastefully. And anytime you say a movie starring Ben Affleck was better than a movie you just watched, you know that you just killed a little bit of your soul.