The Matrix Reloaded Review

by Stephen Rowley (cinephobiaNOSPAM AT yahoo DOT com)
May 21st, 2003

The Matrix Reloaded (Larry and Andy Wachowski), 2003
Review by Stephen Rowley, www.cinephobia.com

The Matrix Reloaded labours under mighty expectations. It isn’t that this is the most expensive and hyped movie of the mid-year round of blockbusters: we don’t have high expectations of heavily hyped movies any more. It’s that its predecessor, 1999’s The Matrix, is so well regarded. With that film, Larry and Andy Wachowski blended elements such as cyberpunk, comic books, Jet Li-style kung fu, and John Woo-style gunplay into a satisfying and exciting narrative. The elements that were mixed weren’t unfamiliar: indeed, many were already well on the way to hackneyed. But the film fused its checklist of geek favourites into such perfect harmony that it was a deserved critical and financial hit. Only four years later it has already staked a convincing claim as a modern sci-fi classic.

One sign of how successfully the Wachowski brothers rounded out their narrative was that The Matrix, despite its suggestive ending, didn’t obviously invite a sequel. It felt complete: the whole film was centred around the theme of awakening, and Neo was awake now. That journey can only be made once: one might as well suggest a sequel to The Truman Show or Dark City. Kung fu can continue forever, but without the strong story core, a Matrix sequel would seem doomed to fall back to the pack of Hong Kong action imitations churning out of Hollywood at the moment. So I thought, going in, that I knew what my response would be. I expected big, huge action. I expected the plot to be predictable and dull. I expected the last human city, Zion, to look like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. (Given the film was shot in Sydney, I half expected the same actors). And following on from all this, I expected this review to be simple: great action, crap story.
Instead, The Matrix Reloaded is a deeply confounding film. Some of what I expected came to pass. The action is great, and Zion does look like Beyond Thunderdome. Yet the Wachowskis have really messed with the formula. The formerly simple distinction between humans and machines in the Matrix has been blurred: the return of Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith signals that we now have rogue programs in the Matrix. Add to that the possibility that a character such as Neo distort the code of the Matrix, and it becomes difficult to say with confidence whether some characters are rogue programs, or humans with special powers. This means that the film is populated with a number of supporting characters with murky motivations and perverse behaviour. The background denizens of the Matrix (the unaware humans who are just going about their business) recede further from sight: the Matrix really is just a battleground to be fought over.

It is in the depiction of these battles that The Matrix Reloaded triumphs. In a movie full of fights, the standout is between Neo and several hundred copies of Agent Smith: while the special effects are less than perfect (it starts well but about halfway through suddenly looks like a computer game), the scene is well choreographed and full of humour. Almost as good is Neo’s battle with several villains on and around a staircase, which is the most overtly Jackie Chan inspired of the Wachowski’s set pieces thus far. Yet all these battles pale into insignifcance compared to the film’s major showcase, a sustained car chase on a freeway. Unlike the battle with the Smiths, the special effects are consistently outstanding, bringing a flawless photorealism to stunts that logic tells us can’t be real. This chase spans multiple vehicles and involves numerous characters, but the Wachowskis bring it off expertly, not having to resort to hyperkinetic editing for impact.
As I said, though, all this was expected. The greater challenge - of extending an already perfectly rounded story over an extra two parts - is not met as surely. While The Matrix never seemed to set a foot wrong, The Matrix Reloaded has, reportedly, mystified and even bored audiences. Worse still, its not what people expect. The Wachowskis are discovering that making a film that panders to the preoccupations of geeks is a double edged sword: their fanboy audience feel they know the rules better than the Wachowskis do. I hate to give him currency, but Harry Knowles’ review from www.aintitcool.com is too instructive to ignore in this context, since Knowles is more honest than most about declaring the preconceptions that shape his opinions. He writes of a moment midway through the film:

"Now on the screen behind them, these two were watching BRIDES OF DRACULA, the best vampire film that has ever been... So we're about to see Vamps or Werewolves or a shitload of cool monsters right? At this point, I'm extremely frickin excited, because I know we're dealing with Werewolves and Vampires… Instead we just get another martial arts battle with weapons that only seem to really affect solid inert objects. Though they've opened the door to Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies and what not... We're not getting them."

Knowles expects vampires and werewolves because these are part of the film geek vocabulary: he knows the rules of this universe ("this is Warner Brothers... D.C. rules apply") and is ready to be the chosen one who breaks us out of Reloaded’s reality and tells us how it should be. A glance through the internet-based response to the film is striking in the way in which the rules of fanboy genres are being used to unravel the mysteries of the film. The only problem is that the results are widely varying because the Wachowskis work across so many genres. Do we take comic book rules ("D.C. rules," as Knowles puts it)? Star Wars rules? Cyberpunk rules? Kung fu rules? What about turning to the mythology that the characters take their names from, or even the Baudrillard we see on Neo’s bookshelf in the first film?
We have no way of knowing. The first film set up a puzzle in the first half (what was happening to Neo?) and then answered it about halfway through, changing the direction of the film. Reloaded has the equivalent scene near the conclusion, when Neo meets a mysterious figure called The Architect. The scene raises many questions that this film fails to answer. And this is why I find it hard to say what I thought of Reloaded. It certainly isn’t as satisfying as The Matrix: the perfect structure of that film gives way to a narrative burdened with dialogue and characters that never really pay off. Furthermore, the last sections (following the highway chase) feel rushed, as if the material the Wachowskis seek to cover is fighting the film’s natural structure (which seeks to place that chase as near to the conclusion as possible).

Despite it flaws, however, the final stretch of the movie offers the clearest indication of where the Wachowskis are going. As many have pointed out, they ignore an obvious point to close this installment and continue on for about ten more minutes. The Wachowskis are too smart for this to be simple sloppiness: even if their storytelling choices ultimately prove misguided, there is clearly thought behind them. So we can look to this final section for clues as to their intentions. And the more I think about this, the more I am encouraged. These scenes offer a number of dark hints that all is not as it seems, and that the reality taken for granted since the middle of the original film might have its own limitations and secrets.

This is why I say that the film is a puzzle. It is not so much the middle part of a trilogy as a question without an answer. As it stands, we have many things left unresolved, and considered purely on its own the film is a disjointed shambles. Yet I think the two-part structure is a legitimate choice by the Wachowskis, and that judgement needs to be held off until the final installment arrives later in the year. The challenge for the brothers will be answering these questions in a satisfying way and bringing closure to the thematic concerns (centered on the nature of free choice) that they have raised this time.

The Matrix Reloaded may yet prove a poor film, but until we see part three I’m really not quite sure.

(C) Stephen Rowley 2003

(C) Stephen Rowley
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Movie reviews and analysis at www.cinephobia.com

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