Short, sweet.

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2003)

Entertaining. No better & no worse than the first one. Only negatives are:
1) Long fight scenes for no particular reason (though technically brilliant) aren't that exciting. Especially when they are 90% digital effects.

2) Used properly digital effects are a great tool. However letting them dominate a movie (Star Wars: Attack Of The Snores) takes away any sort of edge-of-your-seat excitement and jaw-dropping disbelief that old-style effect movies like Indiana Jones gave us the first time we watched them in a cinema.
3) I didn't get the architect. Oh I'm sure the message he had was well meaning and is probably highly important to the context of the storyline, but the movie came to a dead stop for what seemed like a very long time for that particular scene and destroyed the pace.
4) Nice to see that tho they might have lost dominion over the planet they still haven't lost the ability to hold Raves. Why they hold one in the face of almost certain death, I've no idea.
First Matrix had some holes as well. Still enjoyed it tho. Even tho this sequel has possibly the greatest car chase piece in the history of motion pictures right now, the good/bad thing about digital effects are that with the time, talent and money something like that isn't really that difficult. Mores the pity. I'm beginning to suffer visual cgi overload and turn to movies with plots, emotion and acting in them.