not 'the one' only a potential

Rating: 6/10 (2 June 2003)

Most sequels die either of overreach or too much use of the xerox during script writing. This had the curious problem of underreach (spoilers ahead). Neo demonstrates less power than in 'Matrix' while Trinity and Morpheus are both more capable than we saw before. The action has become perfunctory lacking both the visceral effectiveness (hallway shootout), sly humor (tumbleweed/newspaper), and freshness of the first film.

A futility pervades almost all the action. During the ballyhooed Neo/Smiths combat there are no visible injuries. Now I'm not a big fan of manglings but when the participants in an all out brawl are uninjured after a few minutes I have to ask myself what are they doing here? Without the action these movies don't have the legs to be satisfying and I'm afraid that this time the action looks like it was included just because they knew they had to. 6/10