Lanx
<Prior Amod>
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One of the things I noticed about the second and third film, after having watched it over the years, is how Neo almost never fully utilizes his potential as The One.
At the end of the first film, he makes bullets stop midair: weapons don't work on him.
Agent Smith tries to physically fight him, Neo casually blocks every attack without even looking at his opponent: physical attacks do not work.
Come the second and third films, Neo is back to using martial arts on his opponents, when the first film shows he is far beyond the need to use them. He never tries to use his ability to destroy hostile programs from within like he does Agent Smith in the first film. Nor does he really try using any metaphysical abilities (except in the real world) to his advantage except to fly in retreat or save Trinity's life. Smith nearly highlights this in the second film when he taunts Neo with "still using every muscle but the one that matters?"
I know at the heart of these movies is the whole wuxia aesthetic, but that's prob why the first film was so good: without feeling like a blatant ripoff of The Force, the audience is shown that the physical does not matter and there's no need to go further. With sequels, there was really no where to expand on this.
Ironically enough, this may be why Smith was so much more compelling as a character than Neo in the sequels: he's a wildcard that represents his own side of the war, he uses his special abilities first and foremost (unless he needs to physically subdue and restrain his victim to overwrite them) and his ultimate goal has morphed into the need to destroy the real world (physical) and the Matrix (metaphysical).
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