Author: Flatty
Date: 6/8/03
Rating: 6.5
Movie Rating: R
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As a die-hard fan of the first Matrix movie, I've been on edge, waiting to see the second movie ever since leaving the theatres of the first. I recently got the opportunity to go see The Matrix: Reloaded, and I was sadly dissappointed. It's been written that "true fans of the first matrix may not be big fans of the second." Sadly, this is true. To sum it all up for me, the Matrix: Reloaded was far more visually stimulating than the original movie (better fight scenes, bigger explosions, etc), but as far as plot, character developement, and, you know, all the important parts of movies go, I felt rather letdown by this sequel.
My first big annoyance with the movie was all of the new characters introduced without any real introduction. This random kid who Neo "saved," the new pilot for Morpheus' ship, and all the new ship captains/crew just made me feel like I was struggling to grasp what exactly had happened between the end of the first movie and the beginning of the second.
Next up, we come across this 30-minute dirty dancing and sex scene involving most everyone in Zion, and specifically Neo and Trinity. This was absolutely unnecessary. What a terrible editting job. If I were in charge, that crap wouldn't have gone anywhere near the final version. I can get the idea that the families in Zion miss their spouses when they go away without having to see an hour's worth of teary dialogue and grinding to shitty music. I can get the idea that Neo and Trinity are in love without seeing Neo's naked butt and very sexy metal inputs along his spinal cord. That entire hour-long scene in Zion could have been cut down to 10 minutes, and sadly, it did not further the plot in any way except to introduce this new time limit imposed on Neo and company.
But, it's not all bad. A little later in the movie, we're introduced to the idea of these "rogue programs" that have severed their ties to whomever runs the Matrix and are now functioning on their own, with their own purpose in mind. It's an interesting buildoff of the whole idea of "purpose" that was pushed throughout the movie... and apparently these machines have purpose. Kinky.
Then we come across a section of the movie where we have more or less back to back fight scenes. Some of these I liked a lot, others not. First off, Neo fighting against multiple copies of Agent Smith. A nice idea, but it went on far too long. By the time he was fighting upwards of 40 copies, I was getting really bored. It's not as exciting seeing Neo just kick the crap out of people who we all know can't do a thing to him. Next we have a fight scene, once agian featuring Neo against a bunch of programs under the control of yet another rogue program. Again, a nice idea with the weapons, but poorly executed. Neo hardly gets a scratch in that fight and deals out a great deal of punishment. Ho-hum. Then you just let the guy run away after all that work to get to him? I fail to see the point. One fight scene that I thoroughly enjoyed, though, was between Morpheus and one of the agents on top of the semi-truck. There we have a somewhat even fight (notice that Morpheus seems a lot harder/better/faster/stronger now than in the first movie?) with both sides getting knocked around and making excellent recoveries. The fight didn't go on for too long and had a cool ending (katana! yes!), some pretty vital parts for any movie fight. Neo's fight scenes, however, were lengthy and had crappy endings (flying away and a bad guy running away? ew).
After several separate conversations between Neo and others about purpose (Agent Smith, Oracle, The Architect), we find ourselves at the end of the movie. Neo's visions have come true, he chooses the door to go back to his love (unlike the last 5 or 6 "one's"), and he returns the "give life after death" favor to Trinity. Touching, but those two have enough bad acting talent between them to... oh.. say... ruin a scene like that one.
And at the very end, we have Neo using matrix powers in the supposed "real world," Neo slipping into a coma, and this Smith-infected lone-survivor-of-Zion being taken aboard. Very lame setup for the final piece of the puzzle. All in all, I liked the first Matrix much, much more.