A poor successor

Rating: 6/10 (3 April 2008)

As a personal fan of the original Matrix, which I have watched end to end dozens of times and practically memorized the dialogue for, I was expecting the new film to be a blast, both in terms of action and substance. I was right about the former, entirely wrong about the latter, and I'm almost disappointed that I went to see it.
The sequel premise is rather straightforward. Approximately one year after the original film, Neo's powers have grown to the point where he is literally a living god within the Matrix. He is married to Trinity and is gathering a huge following as the "savior" of the last human city of Zion. The Osiris, a ship patrolling the upper levels, detects the presence of a massive machine army coming to destroy Zion. The commanders and ship captains begin bulking up defenses, but Morpheus, with his messianic vision, believes that the key to defeating the machines lies with Neo. The crew of the Nebuchadnezzar takes upon themselves a mission to fulfill the prophecies of the Oracle and save Zion.
While in plot the film is quite good, the acting was atrocious at times and unworthy of some of the actors. Keanu Reeves could have been literally replaced by a stunt double and he would probably have done better acting on screen. In an attempt to somehow become more "deep" and "philosophical", the Wachowski brothers tried to pepper the film with awkward dialogue and pseudo-mysticism. While that material is not necessarily bad or wrong, it could have been delivered more effectively.
The action was good but some of the CGI was absolutely horrible, while some of it was fantastic on the other hand. I found that the scene where Neo fights 100 different Agent Smiths was the poorest of the scenes involving CGI, as it seemed a little *too* artificial. It annoys me to no end that fans try to pass this off as the "artificiality of the Matrix" and the "deep inherent message" when it really comes down to the ineptitude with which the scene was edited, due to time constraints.
Worth seeing for a first shot but really not memorable.