Cliched but true: "Better than the original"

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2003)

This review will not contain any spoilers. But I will go into more depth than I usually like to do, for a multitude of reasons.
Let's start with the original: The Matrix. Once upon a time, in 1999, a sci-fi actionthriller came out of nowhere and rocked the world. That movie, The Matrix, was eye candy. It was the very definition of cool. And it featured some dialogue that practically oozed a feeling of being written, not spoken. (By that I mean, no one talks like people in the matrix - it is dramatic, full of rhetoric tricks, and the entire movie feels like a bit of a very well-written speech). But, once you looked past the eye candy and the cool and the (in my opinion) well-written, but unrealistic dialogue, what you found looked oddly hollow. For all its supposed cleverness, the Matrix felt like an action movie that used the sci-fi setting and all that went with it for one single purpose: making the action more credible. A backdrop for wire-fu.
In comes the sequel: The Matrix Reloaded. Now a lot of previews promised the following outline: The first sequel would deliver incredible action, more of the same, but little in terms of story. The second sequel, concluding the trilogy, would be story intensive and clever and truly something special. So in I went expecting action, action, and more action.
The previews were wrong. So wrong.
Let's start with the movie's weaknesses, though there are few. The beginning is somewhat clumsy and very confusing. Perhaps some people are quick to switch to and fro between Matrix and real world by the colour coding (blue for reality, green for Matrix, white and brown for Zion) but I found myself bewildered and confused more often than I expected, especially near the start. That may be intentional (the directors may feel slightly artsy-fartsy by confusing the audience's perception of what is meant to be real and what artificial, but common, that's a lame trick!) Also, the start just feels too.... sequel-y .... not like a proper movie, but like something that screams "made just for cash" louder than "The Mummy Returns" and "The scorpion King" combined. But after a few minutes, things got interesting. Because, and that is a rare thing in any movie, let alone a sequel, the story grabs the audience.
How much of the story should be revealed? Let's just say that mankind, and Zion, is at risk. Neo's messiah status is evident in his followers and in doubters. And in the matrix, things get more complicated. And then there's the philosophy going on.
Philosophy, I hear you ask? Not quite. More like an involved and intelligent P K Dick'ian sci-fi world. If you watched Minority Report and thought it clever, be braced for something that is much, much better done, and much much better full-stop. For essentially, The Matrix Reloaded covers the same questions as Minority Report, but in a much more interesting way. Yes, it is about Fate and Freedom of Choice. But expect less straight answers, less Hollywoodization of the story, and more guesswork, speculation and intellectual stimulation. If Revolutions really does have more Sci-Fi than Reloaded, then it may well be cleverer / more involving than any other successful SciFi movie ever dared to be (including Blade Runner). One thing I particularly enjoyed is that some things that seemed to be plotholes, or open questions, in the first movie, are answered here, whereas other even more interesting questions are thrown open.
So Reloaded has a story. Does that mean the action is any less? No. There is action, lots of it, and yes, it is absolutely unbelievably stunning. One particular scene feels somewhat stuck on and useless within the story (a fight between Neo and a little Chinese guy), seemingly put there to lighten the intellectual load a bit (Reloaded is being criticized for being a bit stop-and-go and that may be true, as the story and the action follow in a strict turnbased style). But after the disappointing first ten minutes, and apart from that single sequence, everything fits the story quite nicely. Towards the end of the movie, I had no breath left to think about criticizing anything, the movie is hard to ignore or view from a removed perspective. It grabs the attention and the eyes and the brain and tears you along.
The one thing that I'm missing in all this rollercoaster ride is the signature shots. The Matrix had dozens of 'em. Morpheus, with his sunglasses, reflecting the blue pill in one lens and the red pill in the other. The camera circling 360 degrees around a phone to suddenly find people where there were none before. Little, relatively simple, but visually stunning things. Reloaded is so much eye candy that it is increasingly hard to notice anything. Perhaps the John-Woo-homage raven shot seen in the trailer is meant to stun, but in all honesty, I find it hard to memorize any particular (non-action) shot that sticks in my mind as strongly as the simple phone-rounder, or the audio transition between disco and alarm clock in the original Matrix.
Finally, there is a (rather short) trailer for Revolutions at the end of the 8 minute long end credits. If Reloaded supplied lots on the multiplicity side (dozens of things going on simultaneously, dozens of kung fu combatants etc.), then Revolutions seems to go into that other visual joyride, water and rain. Can't wait to see it.
In summary: The Matrix Reloaded is both cleverer and action-richer than the original. It has a surprisingly gripping story for an action movie, surprisingly brilliant action for a clever science fiction movie, and is altogether surprising even after seeing the (revolutionary) original. The "New, Never-Before-Seen" factor may have worn off slightly after the predecessor , but essentially, this movie is an improvement.
9.5/10 (would be 10/10 if it weren't for the weak start)