It's like being hit over the head with Nitsche

Rating: 4/10 (15 May 2003)

Let's be perfectly frank, the biggest reason why the Matrix was so popular, aside from the special effects, was that you could make yourself look smart by appealing the obvious Christ imagery. Reloaded tries to run with the 1984 meets the Bible and drops it at some point in favor of beating us over the head with the same philosophical debates over and over, and with special effects that a room full of monkeys could recreate with an Apple Powerbook and a trial release of Maya 4.5. Yes, six months after the events of the Matrix Neo (Keanu Reeves), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) return to the big screen to stop an invasion of a quarter of a million evil robots from saving their bastion of free humanity, Zion. During the agonizing and yet at other times exciting trip to the inevitable cliffhanger Neo runs again into Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) and the accented Lambert Wilson playing Merovingian a rogue computer program who reinforces several major American stereotypes about the French (i.e. that they are evil, greedy, and randy). There is very little interesting characterization in this film; picture a Cartesian plane and that's about as round as the characters get. This is no surprise with our pool of actors, who have long histories of being able to play characters with emotional ranges of Chia Pets. I am however disappointed with Cowboy Curtis, I expect more from such a beloved childhood friend, his grand oration is a huge let down as his voice though smoky and seductive up close and personal drops off to a bit of a whisper when it gets louder. The story-line is simple: fight, exposition, fight, redundant banter, fight, redundant banter, fight, redundant banter, fight, redundant banter, fight, cliffhanger seen from a mile away on a foggy night. The basic philosophy of the film, which delves more into the nature of choice than the nature of reality, is easy to understand but is presented in such a way as to make it a great tool to teach two-year-old children about how their lives are already planned right down to the Dilbert comic that they're going to place on their own patch of felt. There are a few plot twists, but they aren't really great leaps, the Wachowski brothers' idea of foreshadowing seems to have been borrowed from mob bosses' secret hideouts in Chuck Jones cartoons. Now for my incredible plot twist, I'm going to talk about some things that I like about the Matrix: Reloaded. First, lots of action. Where the golden age of the Studios had dancing with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the modern era has martial arts films with Jet Li and a bunch of wires. Reloaded is doused with action in everywhere from basketball courts to the L.A. freeway. The action sequences are cathartic (in a way that prevents you from hunting down Keanu Reeves and throwing a pie at him) and really pick up the pace of a movie that otherwise acts like a dog chasing its tail. I know that I lampooned the special effects earlier, but even after appearing in every movie for the past four years, if you've ever attempted 3D computer based animation you know that it can be a life draining experience. Reloaded fails to innovate but it does orchestrate some beautiful explosions and fight scenes. It seems that if we were to judge Reloaded solely by the pop-film formula of `the sheer awesomeness of an action film is equal to the body count, times the size of the explosions, to the power of the number of fight scenes' then reloaded ranks up right behind the perennial favorite XXX. As for set design and costuming; I feel that the art direction staff and Kym Barrett need a round of applause. While it is the cliché dystopian world, similar to ours yet dirtier, it just works so well with its grand office buildings, stark white halls and slimy alleys. The symbolism of the great white room of Zion's control tower (religious imagery), and of the light pouring through the gate at the end of the long tunnel (religious imagery) cannot be denied. The costuming, from Neo's cassock (which is reminiscent of the garb of an Eastern Orthodox priest), to the latex which always seems to cling in an ever so flattering way to Miss Moss's body, to the nifty sunglasses that everyone is always wearing, you just sit and say `I wish that I had tight latex pants like that', or possibly `how does Cowboy Curtis keep those frames on his face when they don't have arms?' Overall Reloaded clocks in at a tiring 2 hours and 18 minutes. It tries to reach to the lofty philosophical heights of the first film and then decides that sex and chatter are decent substitutes. Still if the Matrix was a story of birth, then Reloaded was a story of life and sexuality (a bit). If you have a free afternoon in the coming weeks and are looking for something with a bit of action and not so much thinking then Reloaded is for you, otherwise you might want to wait until this one hits network TV in 13 months.