Keanu Reeves Gives 'Matrix' Story Glimpses

"The story goes outside the Matrix and starts to concern itself with machines in Zion. He is told by the Oracle that he has - it's not destiny - choices that he will have to make that will affect the survival of the human race."

As fans of the Star Wars series can attest, the challenge is maintaining the storytelling without being dazzled by the technological possibilities for new visual effects.

Reloaded reputedly begins with the machines having learned the location of Zion near the earth's core. They plan to tunnel down and use thousands of sentinels - squid-like kamikazis - to obliterate the city. Revealing more of the plot than some cinema-goers will want, Newsweek said the humans' only hope is to track down a tiny character called the Keymaker, who has access to all the doors into the machine world. He is being guarded by the Twins, albinos with blond dreadlocks who can vanish and reappear like ghosts.

In the absence of comment from the Wachowskis - they apparently have a clause in their contract which excuses them from doing any publicity for their films - Silver insists the sequels will be more than just escapist action. "It's so weird to say this but it's a treatise on our times and where we're going and how to not go there. It's about global warming and the Catholic Church. It's about all that stuff that's going on in our lives that we can't really grab on to."

Maybe so, but the build-up is, at least, now tangible.