The Matrix Reloaded Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)May 27th, 2003
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It only takes about 45 seconds for The Matrix Reloaded to grab you by the throat and slap you across the face, and I think that's the way most fans of the original film would have it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, those fans will need to come to terms with Reloaded suffering from the same Middle Child Syndrome as The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers. Unlike the first film, there isn't a beginning, a middle and an end. It's all just a set-up for the final film in the trilogy - The Matrix Revolutions, due out this November - so be prepared for an abrupt ending (like we haven't already had enough of that thanks to the recent slew of cliffhanger television finales).
If you haven't seen The Matrix, rent it before you bother with Reloaded. You'll be completely lost otherwise, because there isn't any kind of recap and, to be honest, there are probably a lot of people who didn't really get what happened in the first film, either. We don't really even know how much time has passed between the end of the original and the beginning of Reloaded, but those darn sentinels are in the process of burrowing down into Zion, the last remaining enclave for people who have been unplugged from the eponymous faux-reality.
We also learn that not everybody buys into the whole notion that Neo (Keanu Reeves, Hard Ball) is the prophesized savior of the human race. In fact, Neo's handler Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne, Biker Boyz) butts heads with Zion's two leaders, one of whom (Harry J. Lennix, Collateral Damage) happens to be the new beau of Morpheus's former squeeze (Jada Pinkett Smith, Ali). There's also a bunch of governmental bickering over whether Zion should focus on defending itself or backing Neo, and it all reminded me a lot of the boring parts of the two most recent Star Wars films.
As far as The Matrix's version of The Scooby Gang goes, the only survivors from the original are Neo, Morpheus and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss, Memento). They are joined by a new pilot named Kain (Harold Perrineau Jr., Oz), who is married to the sister (Nona M. Gaye replaced the late Aaliyah) of two of the grunts that bought it in the first flick. Yeah, I know - this is starting to sound like a soap opera plot, but I'm going to cut it some slack because some of this stuff may turn out to be more relevant than anyone thinks in the upcoming Revolutions. There are a ton of new folks here (like Monica Bellucci, as well as those freaky twins who look like the love children of Johnny and Edgar Winter and the singer from The Offspring), and it remains fairly unclear whether any of them will be back.
Then again, I'm not sure how much anyone is supposed to focus on the story, because it's definitely a few notches below that of The Matrix. The whole Alice In Wonderland meets Philip K. Dick thing makes way for what amounts to a lot of dumb dialogue that just thinks it's important. Neo, who can now fly and use The Force, is told by The Oracle (the late Gloria Foster) that it isn't so much which path he's supposed to take as why he's supposed to take it, but all viewers will be able to remember is the flying and The Force. The less you pay attention to the pseudo-intellectual psychobabble, the better. Actually, the less you think, the better. Neo is The One - we know it, and he knows it. And that makes the film a lot less suspenseful, because The One is supposed to lead his people to victory.
You've probably seen clips of the film's two big scenes (Neo vs. dozens of Agent Smiths, and the Big Freeway Chase), but what you've witnessed is only the tip of an incredible iceberg. The Yuen Woo-Ping-choreographed Wire Fu is, of course, taken to brand-new levels, and the Freeway thing (which lasts for 14 minutes and was filmed on a two-mile highway built just for the film) left my jaw in my lap and my nails dug into the arms of my seat. I was flinching, which is something that doesn't happen outside an IMAX theatre, or a Jennifer Lopez movie. There are a few moments in which Neo looks painfully like a CG videogame character, but thought of The Matrix concluding within a month of Lord of the Rings is still enough to make any authentic geek-boy foam at the mouth. Incidentally, how the hell did Hugo Weaving manage to land in all six films of these two trilogies?
2:18 - R for sci-fi violence and some sexuality
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