You have to see it for yourself ...

Rating: 7/10 (7 June 2003)

After the massive success of the excellent original movie, expectations were very high for this one. Unfortunately, as you probably know this one wasn't as popular or as great as the first film. The main reason for this as far as I can see is simple -- at the beginning of the film there is a half hour or so segment set in Zion which completely sucks the life out of everyone, and most of them can never truly be recovered after that. The later, tedious dialogue sequences that go around and around in circles don't help much either.
Don't get me wrong, the action sequences are all great, the multi-Smith battle, the lengthy car chase and road battle sequence are all fantastic pieces of cinema history, and for this reason alone "The Matrix Reloaded is not to be missed. As a general rule, any scene in this film that is set inside the Matrix is great and worth seeing, and at the end there are not one but (eek!) TWO twists that, while they might not make a whole lot of sense, will make your head spin and definitely make you want to watch "The Matrix Revolutions" if you haven't already.
Now, onto that pesky first half hour ... the reason that this segment is there is to establish plot, develop characters and it is mostly reliant on dialogue. As you'll remember from the first film, plot and dialogue aren't exactly the Wachowski brother's strong point. They proceed to poke so many more holes in the Matrix arc-plot that you may as well just skip over this opening segment -- it won't make sense anyway. The new characters also fail to be as interesting or appealing as the character's who we know and love in the first film, and I find that I wouldn't care that much if they all ended up dead in the next one. As for the dialogue, there are certain lines that almost made me cringe and clench my seat in agony. George Lucas had a similar problem with his latest Star Wars efforts ... it's a case of great special effects combined with inadequate scriptwriting.
On the whole this an entertaining film and worth seeing for certain segments, but by no means is it a classic like it's prequel.