Doesn't compare with the original

Rating: 4/10 (18 May 2003)

Although throughout the eighties, sequels were never expected to live up to there originals, in recent years things have changed. With movies like X-men 2 improving on on the first, we've come to expect the sequel to be as good, if not better than the original. With the Matrix being billed as a trilogy (even originally being pitched as such) I thought that Reloaded would live up to the hype. Unfortunately it didn't. The action sequences were awesome but the story lagged in between. Whereas the original Matrix used imagery to explain the philosophical themes (e.g. the battery analogy) Reloaded tried to drive it's point with dialogue, spoken in almost a lecturing tone. Now I have been through enough university lectures to not want them rehashed in movie form between action sequences. Although the ideas are clever, there's no point delivering them to an audience who only occasionally wakes up to an explosion here or there. Over all, the Matrix was a let down, though worth seeing just so you can watch the special effects and complain about the plot at the next party you attend.