Unloaded

Rating: Null/10 (24 June 2003)

Fight scenes are to Reloaded what CG is to Attack of the Clones: there in overabundance. Like with SW's vast world of CG, we're immediately wowed by the crazy physics-defying battles within the Matrix, but it's not too long before you find yourself sitting there saying, `Okay, feel free to end the fight any time soon.' You can only see Neo slam Smith into a wall (or vice versa) so many times, and too much bullet time gets annoying.
Definitely a fun film to watch, but not something you'd want to dive too deeply into and certainly the last film you'd want to get philosophical about. When said fights and special effects are gone, there's really not much left holding up the movie. I mean, the character development for Trinity amounts to her nice shiny black outfit and funny catch phrases from time to time. Not the fault of Moss, either the writers failed to give her character anything to work with or the material was cut in favor of dragging out the highway battle.
Neo had some nice character development in the first Matrix film, though that's more attributed to the fact Neo is the point of the whole plot. But in Reloaded, his character develops as the plot demands it . . . specifically in the final thirty minutes of the film when we start moving somewhere again at a reasonable pacing. It would be nice to see Neo continue to grow with his ability instead of making him a demi-God at the start of this movie who really doesn't budge until the final few minutes of the film.
Morpheus is the only other character who stands out, not so much because he was particularly well developed, rather because Lawrence Fishburne managed to overcome the poor writing as an actor. I'll cut slack to the villains since they are part of the Matrix and, given the plot, it's better to keep them in shadows and mystery. As for the new character, Niobe, she screams token black character . . . and what about the new operator on the Nebechenazzar? Can we get any more typical?
Throughout the course of the movie, not much really happens in Matrix: Reloaded besides fights, fights, and more fights. The film could easily have been cut 30 minutes shorter and we'd miss a few meaningless snippets of dialogue and a little action here and there, or in other words there's not a whole hell of a lot of plot going on-this is the trip from Point A (Neo's revelation about the Matrix in the first movie) to Point B (Neo's eventual resolution regarding the Matrix in the third movie) and the only way the Wachowski Brothers know how to spice it up is with fights, fights, an orgy, and more fights.
To Reloaded's defense: it did have a few interesting commentaries and points that it made. It's a shame that the Wachowski brothers chose to exploit them as Reloaded's plot instead of as a mere point, but it did have a few good ideas that I've always asked of any given epic film. `Why -are- they listening to that person they don't even know just because he says he's a 'goodguy'?'
Again, Reloaded is a fun mindless ride as long as you don't start expecting too much out of the film or ask too many questions.