a real mixed bag

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2004)

The Wachowski Brothers must believe everyone in the world has seen The Matrix, because this sequel makes absolutely no attempt whatsoever to tell you what is going on. None. Fortunately, pretty much everyone *has* seen The Matrix, so we all had a general idea of what was going on, I just mention it as an example of bad film-making.
Muddle and self important, reloaded takes about an hour to get going. That first hour is remarkably lame, often seeming like some stodgy gladiator epic from the '50s, and containing a remarkable stupid and unnecessary bacchanal.
But although it is vastly inferior to the original, with a story that never draws you in and has neither an ending nor a good cliffhanger (the end just left me scratching my head, unclear as to why that last shot is worthy of portentous music), the movie isn't completely worthless. While the fight scenes feel more like dance scenes, with no sense that a real fight is going on, they are fun, well choreographed, and at times quite ingenious, most notably in that short fight inside a car. And while there's a lot of sophomoric crap about free will and predetermination, the explanation near the end on the structure of the Matrix and The One's purpose was a surprisingly smart sci-fi concept in a movie that for the most part was more chopsocky than sci-fi. If you've seen the first one and approach this with low expectations (or, like some of the people at this site, consider all that blather deep) you might enjoy yourself, but if you're expecting a worthy sequel to The Matrix, forget it.