Get Me An Exit!

Rating: Null/10 (26 October 2003)

* ½ (1½ out of 5)

The Matrix Reloaded
Directed by: The Wachowski Brothers, 2003
This movie has been getting a bad rap and I have to join in. I wasn't that much of a fan of the original either (a 2½ rating, so imagine my solitude when everyone was raving madly about it in 1999).
Keanu Reeves was poor in The Matrix. He's a really, really bad actor and the whole concept of the Matrix itself was not only dumb, it lacked simple logic and at best entertained like disarming nonsense. For a sci-fi freak like myself the basic idea was technically charming but the structure and themes were wafer-thin. Guns? Fistfights? Black leather? Suits? Too stylized, too nerdy, folks. You can tell it was written by nerds, for nerds, an "action-utopia" or "perfect computer game enviroment." To my knowledge and if I tune my future-goggles right here, hey, machines would never build something like the Matrix. On the contrary: Why cater to humans? They're all drugged and locked down anyway.
But back to Matrix Reloaded. The things that worked in the first one and that I liked - the atmosphere, the larger-than-life feel on a decent budget and the impressive still-motion wire stunts (that already back then got overdone) - are missing here. Well, the 'feel' of them are. This is just the Wachowski brothers with more money. Huge fights and huge chases but no excitement. It's soulless, it's heartless. Keanu is even worse than in previous outings - yes, it's actually possible - because here he has to tackle a romance with first lady Trinity. He delivers lines so bad, so wooden, they made me laugh. Funny also, because Carrie-Anne Moss is both cool, charming and sexy but she's just kissing and staring into the face of this bland neanderthal. Sad stuff.
The fights in Reloaded are way over the top. More of the same to begin with. Punch. Block. Kick. Punch. Jump. Kick. Say what? Why? Read Harry Knowles' review for more. He's completely on the money. We've seen it all before and it's idiotic. So just shoot the damn gun, alright? Oh wait, Neo can block bullets now. So why can't he block kicks and punches with a "mindwall" like he can bullets? Ah, the logic.
Agent Smith is back for no other reason then.. well, he's back. The public wanted him. Pretty obvious. So how to bring him back from the dead.. How about we make him a computer virus? Nice one, we'll buy that, but the thrill is lacking despite Hugo Weaving's characteristic spoken drawl and sleek meanness. Furthermore, Smith manages to turn up at two pivotal junctions in the story, just after Neo has delivered crucial dialogue to either The Oracle or Morpheus. How does he do that? The third installment, Revolutions, might shed a light on that, fanboys, but it's writing based on audience reactions, not vice-versa now. Contrived populism that destroys whatever shards of integrity the original had.
The grand fight scene that got all the trailer buzz - the many, many Agent Smiths against a lone Neo - made me speechless. Because I didn't care. Been there, done that. Neo will win. There is no intensity, no drama, just a retread of effects from the first one and juiced up. Then when the brawl escalated into a computer game (completely computer generated) I had to look away. I went into the kitchen and made some coffee, contemplating on how few moviemakers today have actually realized how CGI just isn't good enough yet. They want us to think so, but it's not. Talk about denial.

Later on, a freeway chase has logistics to die for. The Wachowskis actually built 1.4 mile of freeway just south of San Francisco to make this scene. That's moxy, considering how everyone else would just CGI-y it. I was psyched when this scene began hence it was maybe the kick in the face Reloaded needed. But it just doesn't resonate. I must direct people's attention to other recent movies: in Spielberg's Minority Report (that is even more CGI-drenched in its chase scenes) we cared because the story and storytelling was so good. In Terminator 3 - lesser all around to the two before it, but not as bad as we could have feared - the firetruck scene is gawking simply because there's a focus on the nitty-gritty basics of the action and struggles itself, real steel and glass, real automobiles burning rubber and colliding. In Matrix Reloaded the whole freeway slam-bam scene feels like a computer game. You know how you just always floor your car, pedal to the metal, when you play a computer game because you just don't care? It's all speed and velocity? Same thing here. Trinity, Neo and Morpheus whiz in and out of traffic, chased by agents and bad guys and there's just no tension whatsoever.
That scene is a full-on free shot. That hits like a powder-puff.

Same can be said for the movie as a whole. I didn't even get to the underworld of Zion, the long pandering neo-classical religious and philosophical speeches or the two new henchmen, The Albino Twins, who - when they morph into spirits - reminded me of the effects in Poltergeist (22 years ago).

Matrix Reloaded is bad. A disappointment even for moderate fans of the first one. The program doesn't just need patches, it requires a real upgrade. Somebody call Bill Gates.