Imagine the first film, but without it's anti-establishmentarian soul, and with a cold hard hollywood black heart replacing it.

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2003)

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't an awful film by any means, and it does have some cool action scenes as well as a deep plot, but it just comes off in the same way that Merovingian does - Smug and pretentious. I liked the first film, so don't think I'm a hater of the series or anything, but what narks me off about sci-fi sequels in general, is that instead of leaving aspects to the film to your imagination, the film's reality is shoved down your throat. Places and scenes that would have been better left out (EG Morpheus' speech in zion) are done, and they just come off as being there for the sake of it. Big words are used for the sake of making the film sound smarter than it actually is, proved when neo later condenses reams of someone's philosophical garbage into a single sentence.
This film's very different to the last, which some might like, but others such of myself find off-putting. The first was alot more inventive and had an infinitly more interesting storyline. For number two, expect more of the same, but overkilled bullet-time, over-complicated plot, over-extravagant effects.
Although with all this said, there are some brilliant fight scenes, and the car chase scene is filmed nicely, but these few gleams of brilliance don't make up for the pretension that is the rest of the film.
I understood it, just didn't like it. It takes more than this film's glossy exterior to fool me into thinking the film's as polished underneath as it is on the surface.
Nice try.