More about action, less about characters and plot

Rating: 6/10 (6 June 2003)

The Matrix Reloaded was a hugely hyped film that was meant to do the impossible: to be better than the brilliant original. The novelty has already gone while the main strength of the original, despite groundbreaking fx, was it's great story. That story has now already been told. Mr Anderson turning into Neo, The One, becoming his true self and finding out the stunning truth.
So, what is left after this? More action. Lots more. Surely, more spectacular and over-the-top, but more is not always more. The movie fails in introducing interesting new characters and the dialogue is extremely dull, lacking the humour and spunk of the first movie. We're supposed to believe Neo and Trinity (and I still don't get why she is called that) truly love each other with a sex scene? I'll prefer the Han Solo-Princess Leia romance anytime. And where are the little comic reliefs like the Mouse character in the first movie? Furthermore, where is the suspense? Do we really fear for Neo's life now that he has found out about his superpower, taking on 100's of Agent Smith clones and flying around like superman? I'll prefer an unprepared Luke Skywalker challenging Vader in "Empire" anytime. It was like the Wachovsky Brothers took out everything likeable about Anime (character develeopment, little distincion between good and evil, insecureties and weaknesses of the hero) and substituted it for bland American comicbook Superheroism.
The plot can be summarized as the following: sentinels heading towards Zion plus Neo having to find Keymaker that is needed for access to the Matrix Mainframe. This, between the boring dialogue (except perhaps for the dialogue in the ending with the maker and the chitchat with that French dude), is filled up with an extended version of the trailer. Yup, that's it. The trailer already showed small parts of all the action scenes, leaving no surprising action scenes. All in all, a disappointment. What went wrong in a production that was so obviously dedicated (making us wait 4 years) in creating a superior sequel. The only comfort I can take in it is that they probably wanted to save the best for last.
So, all we have is action? Are they any good? Certainly. The Attack of the Smith Clones should become legendary and is unseen in film history. The car chase is extremely complex and long. Furthermore, more kungfu than guns which is a good thing. My only problem was that Laurence Fishburnes moves looked a bit slow.
One more thing: that whole techno/tribal dance thing in Zion, after Morpheus speech, it was rather ridiculous. Don't get me wrong I like techno, but it just seemed out of place.
So, sequels still suck, most of the time....bummer! 6 out of 10.