When “The Matrix” was released in 1999, many considered it better than “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” While I never championed the movie to the point some crazed fans did, I found it to be a nice blend of anime, Philosophy 101 and Hong Kong action films.
Unfortunately, its sequel failed to match it. “The Matrix: Reloaded” begins with a dream Neo (Keanu Reeves, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”) is having, foretelling the death of his beloved Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss, “Memento”).
Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne, “Othello”) leads Trinity and Neo to a meeting between the fleet captains inside the Matrix to talk about the last transmission of the Osiris. Turns out that hundreds of thousands of sentinels are digging toward Zion and will reach their city in 36 hours. Morpheus believes Neo, The One, can stop it. All that remains is to wait for a message from the Oracle telling him how.
I wish I was just simplifying the plot for space purposes, but that’s all there really is to this movie. Most sequels aren’t as good as the originals, but this is far worse than I could have imagined. So much of the movie is really not necessary. We get boring conversations about how humans need machines to survive and vice versa. I thought this idea was covered well in the first film and really did not need to be reiterated.
Do we really need to see a five-minute rave scene either? Of course not. These things only waste time and bore the hell out of viewers. It is style over substance, and that’s all this movie is. Warner Bros. had too much faith in these directors, judging from how willing the company was to leave such lameness in the film.
Most of the dialogue scenes are not interesting. Morpheus’ speeches are cold, uninspiring and pretentious. Neo’s meetings with the Oracle, the Merovingian and the Architect all seem to be redundant. They all focus on the idea that choice is an illusion. This is very basic simplification of the passages from a Philosophy 101 book. This was true of the first film, but it was far better integrated into the plot than this. This feels forced and preachy.
The love story between Trinity and Neo lacks any real emotion, since they act like pre-teens who had sex sooner than they should. They say the same lame, “I need you,” “I don’t want to lose you,” dialogue over and over again. When a program of the Matrix hits on Neo, Trinity pulls a gun on her like a jealous 13-year-old, not a grown woman. It’s a computer program!
The action scenes themselves are too long, overdone and shot too close when there are actual humans in them. Others are pure CG and look no better than an X-Box game. Producer Joel Silver says no one will be able to copy the Neo vs. 100 Agent Smiths fight since it took so long to shoot and render — but it looks awful. Why would anyone want to copy that?
Too much of this movie hinges on the next film. They couldn’t even do a truly suspenseful cliffhanger ending. Ending about two minutes earlier would have been far more effective. They should have watched more “Star Trek.”
If there is any reason to watch this movie, it is because of Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”). Thanks to Neo, Smith is free of the system and able to do whatever he pleases. All we get are hints of what he will become in the final film, but Weaving plays it with such dry wit that he steals every scene he is in. Too bad he can’t save this failure of a movie.
I think the Wachowski Brothers had a solid story for one long movie, but not two two-hour movies. “The Matrix: Revolutions” is going to have to be a great movie to make up for this, but it can’t make it a great trilogy.
“The Matrix: Reloaded” comes out on DVD and VHS this Tuesday, Oct. 14.
Grade: C
