It's hard to top the original Matrix. (spoilers)

Rating: 6/10 (15 May 2003)

It seems obvious that The Matrix series is quickly becomeing a Star Wars type trilogy. The first of each series was predicted to fail, while both became successies (the difference, however, is that Star Wars became a hit over night while it took fans a little longer to respond to The Matrix). The first film in each series is dedicated to being a quality movie to capture attention and hold it. The sequal then expands on the inner workings behind all the actoin and drama, opening the society and politics to the audience, instead of actually focusing on plot and character devlopment.

In addition, the amount of dialogue has incresed from TM to TM2. Unbelievably, the quality of this dialogue has decreased. Certain lines were chosen just to throw sand in your eyes. The originality behind the first movie was amazing and, on a first viewing, it may have made little sense, while the second and third viewings put confusing items into perspective. I do not feel this is the case with TM2. The plot is a little better and actually might have an underlying metaphore built into it. It is explicated as follows: The people of Zion are darker skinned, they are very earthen and triabl and exist in poor living conditions. The people in the Matrix live in a paradise and are unaware of the poor state of the rest of the people. These two groups represent an upper and lower class in a society (most likely America) that lives totally seperatly from the other. The lower class is divided on the idea of weather they should except their sate or fight it as well. The machines play the obvious role of the governing body, to exercise control and authority. They attempt to destroy the people by travelling deep into the core of the city and erradicating all life. Neo, of course, is the voice of the people, stading up against opression. Their is one last character: the architect behind the Matrix. His role is probably the most obvious. This man acts as a God responsible for the peaceful exceptance of a way of life. Religion is the opiate of the masses. In his conversations with Neo, he also points out that the matrix has been redesigned several times becasue of failures and that eachtime, Zion (a biblical title) was destroyed. This exemplifies the emmense power of God for he can start and end life when ever he choses. Choice plays anoter important role in the film. God tells Neo he has no choice, but he stills feels that he does, thus introducing the concept of fate. Fate can be interpreted and applied many different ways over the film and I will spare you those connections for now.
Next i get to the action in the film and I'll keep this brief so i don't spoil anything. Overall, there is to much repetition, the fights go on too long and there are too many "computer" fights, and not enough "wire" fights. (Though this last point sounds insignificant, it takes away large amounts of credibilty). With all of that said, most of the fighting is pretty sweet.