Hollowness exposed

Rating: 3/10 (13 March 2016)

Intelligent sci-fi or just a clever scam? That was the question the first Matrix film left you pondering. Well, the first half hour of the sequel has 'humbug' written all over it. Pretentious babble with empty, fake dialogues and overlong, pointless fight scenes. A shockingly boring and disjointed hodgepodge that is barely connected to the somewhat vague ending of the first instalment. The Wachowskis unashamedly borrow from a plethora of much better movies (Star Wars: Attack of the Clones & Return of the Jedi, Minority Report, Terminator: Judgement Day, Aliens, Lord of The Rings, you name it), but their own contribution amounts to zero. With Neo's and Trinity's love scene and the rave party at Zion they really scrape the bottom of the barrel, reducing the movie to a horrendous video clip.
Fortunately, things start to improve with the reappearance of the Oracle. That is the first scene that recalls what was good in the first Matrix movie. From there, the picture is a mixed bag: slowly, some kind of story does unfold, and we get to see a couple of great new effects, as well (the truck collision scene is truly outstanding). In the end, the Wachowskis prove that they haven't completely run out of ideas, you just wish they hadn't crammed all of those into the last third of the film. And the more plot twists are introduced, the more questions arise in their wake. Naturally, one excruciatingly drawn-out action scene after another ensures that the audience not dwell too long on the logical flaws.
Those who haven't seen the first movie will probably be completely baffled. Worse still, those who have will not get much smarter either. The one thing you might learn from watching Reloaded is how to take a couple of smart ideas and stitch them together in the dumbest way possible.