Great action, but don't expect to see the Wachowskis getting any Oscars...ever

Rating: Null/10 (26 May 2003)

SPOILER Over the last five years or so, there have been several series of films that have gotten the hype of The Matrix. Those that stand out are Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and the Star Wars prequels. The Matrix has set the score to even: 2-2, them being two series that deserved the hype due to solid stories, great acting, and expert directing (them being LOTR and Harry Potter) and two in which it seemed that because the films had a guaranteed following and would make their studies hundreds of millions no matter how terrible the movies are, the directors laid back and didn't put much effort in (them being The Matrix and Star Wars, obviously). That is not to take away from the incredible advances in CGI provided by both of the latter series, which both deserve equal acclaim in that regard. However, their is so much bad in The Matrix: Reloaded that it overshadows the fact that it has once again set the standard for breathtaking action sequences.
Like the first film in the series, the sequel opens with an action scene, and then goes into about forty minutes of storytelling to lay the more general parts of the plot. At some point within this forty-minute action break, there is a scene in Zion, the last human city, that proves to be a microcosm of what the film really is: a pointless excuse to show off the directors perversions. And in this film, unlike the original, those perversions go far beyond violence as this film explores the physicality of the relationship that has developed between Neo and Trinity. The scene previously referred to begins when Morpheus makes a Moses-esque speech to Zion, telling them not to fear the 250,000 lethal machines that are coming to destroy them because Neo will save the day. Not only are the words of his speech possibly the most poorly-written monologue in film history, but the Zion-ites reaction to his speech is to do none other than have a giant, 250,000- person orgy, while Neo and Trinity sneak off to have sex of their own, with the two simultaneous scenes interlaced to some very sexual techno music. Of course the seemingly endless scene does have a very large bearing on the plot...except that it doesn't. The director's objective is hard to comrehend for one major reason: the first film, which contained nary a curse word and probably narrowly missed receiving a PG-13 rating, got a huge following from children at or around the age of 13. Therefore, why include a scene that, despite its lack of nudity if highly erotic, not to mention a scene in which Neo sees a digital representation of a woman having an orgasm (reminiscent of Monty Python and the Meaning of Life) and a subsequent reference to felatio, when parents would willingly take their children to see this movie because of its lack of particularly inappropriate content?
While their are still plot holes in the movie, most of them are the same holes that were apparent from the first movie, and those that were not cannot be critiqued yet because they may very well be patched up in the final installment. A plot hole that comes to mind now, since this movie brings sex into the plot, is the fact that sex within the Matrix somehow can produce a child that is born outside the Matrix yet is also born to the same people inside the Matrix. Obviously in making a film like this, certain plot holes like the above are to be expected though, and cannot be blamed on the people behind the film. But there is plenty to blame on the Wachowskis. They created a franchise similar to that of the Blair Witch Project, only on the opposite side of the monetary spectrum. While the films themselves are polar opposites, they had people thinking, "What if?" and like the BWP, the massive success led to a watered down plot with no intrigue. Yet thanks to the brilliance (or lack thereof) of the brother directors, they still felt compelled to have certain characters (i.e. the Oracle who appeared in the first film, and in particular a certain character who appears at the end of this film) speak as though they are walking thesauri. The concept of the film is complicated enough, without twenty-letter words needing to be thrown out in chunks so as to make a character's speech incomprehensible to anyone, including those who think they have an edge because of a vast knowledge of computers. If the plot is watered down for the masses, like it obviously was (save a city in 72 hours--not so atypical of action movies), can they simplify the speech? I personally prefer more complicated, psychological movies such as Memento and Mulholland Drive, but the words in this film leave the viewer sweating trying to think of what the heck was just said. Who cares that the Wachowskis have such a comanding use of the language?
The directors took a promising franchise and turned it into Tron with cooler special effects. And even the fight scenes get old. The car chase (which still can't compare to the French Connection OR Bullitt) starts out well, but gets boring after ten minutes of the same thing happening on the same straight road with the same four characters. While the fight between Neo and probably around 100 Agent Smiths is phenomenal, the subsequent fight involving Neo are just more of the same: all of his "moves" are shown about twenty times each and he flies around doing nothing for a good portion of the movie as well.
Despite the fact that I don't like this movie all that much, I say see it and judge for yourself whether the hype was worth it. It is entertaining and if you've seen the first one, you'll want to see it. Just don't get your hopes up. Oh, and don't waste your time sitting through the end-credits to see the Revolutions trailer: it doesn't show anything of interest or anything plot-related, just a few shots of action sequences.