It's a good night out, but the Wachowski brothers sold out.

Rating: 6/10 (16 May 2003)

If you don't want a spoiler, don't read.
Overall, didn't leave the movie with good feeling. As a movie, it was fun but as a Matrix movie, it was subpar.
The Matrix: Reloaded delivered mind-blowing special effects, as expected, but with the exception of one or two major effects scenes, the previews gave everything away. I ended up being blown away only one or two times in the first hour and a half because I was just waiting to see something new.
They spent a good ten minutes on this orgy scene that had two elements: 1)Neo and Trinity gettin' it on while they were on shore leave in Zion and 2) the denizens of Zion, incensed by a warning by Morpheus of the impending approach of the machines, dancing the night away in a hot, wet, sexually-charged, rave-like atmosphere. It was gratuitous and simply did not fit into the overall story.
Agent Smith. He's cool and I ordered his poster, but his character didn't fit into the overall story either, or, if it does, the purpose was not revealed or even alluded to. His presence resulted in some excellent fight scenes, but my sense is that he just happened to reappear while the movie was talking place.
Cliff-hanger ending: I would have preferred a fully self-contained story that just contributed to the overall premise of the Matrix, the war against the machines. The cliff-hanger, itself, was poorly constructed, and it involved a character that was only present in two scenes, I believe. He'd hardly said a word, and there was no sense of why this peripheral character was at the heart of the cliffhanger.
Monica Bellucci is not a main character. She's in one scene.
I'm not going to comment on any of the good parts of the movie because they're what make the Matrix: Reloaded worth seeing. It's got some pretty cool characters, some pretty cool plot devices and twists, and the effects scenes are still, most-definitely, worth seeing on the big screen.
Have fun.