Putrescent

Rating: 1/10 (27 December 2004)

In 1999 (or was it '98?), the Wachowski brothers brought us THE MATRIX. This was a fantastic film. While not exactly original, it was beautifully presented, fast-paced, well-written and excellently co-ordinated, proving to be one of the most successful science fiction movies of the decade. Four (five?) years later, they decided to snap up a quick million or two by extending the Matrix story into a trilogy. Financially advisable. Artistically? Possibly one of the worst courses of action it's possible to take.
THE MATRIX RELOADED is a shameless spin off of the first movie, an ill-conceived, atrociously-written, poorly-executed piece of cinematic sewage. It doesn't matter how many bucks this is worth, or how fast the fight scenes are, or how cool the computer graphics are - I have yet to hear any convincing argument to defend this pathetic film. It's unoriginal, protracted, convoluted, confused, brainless garbage.
More than anything else, it's excruciatingly boring. Close to four-fifths of the film is devoted to Neo and his buddies engaged in glorified punch-ups, firefights, car chases and mind-power duels with his foes. All of these run for an average fifteen minutes, enough time to send you into a stupor with the unimaginative, repetitive action and clumsy cinematography. Furthermore, the acting certainly can't save this turkey - all of the characters, even the human ones, behave more like robots than human beings, hamming their way through the interminable jiujitsu sequences as if they themselves are bored by their actions.
But wait! There's more! In a feeble attempt to justify the inane combat, the Wachowskis have stuffed the film with "philosophic content". This is too insipid to be described even as chicken-soup philosophy, sounding more like the confused, monotonous, rudimentary existentialist ramblings of an egocentric thirteen-year-old. Rather than writing these ideas into the plot, they have simply bundled them together in incoherent clumps and stuffed them at random intervals into the screenplay, resulting in unintelligent, meandering dialogue throughout. Not only does this suggest that the Wachowskis don't quite understand their own "philosophy", and may have lifted it from a story written by a dim-witted teenage nerd, but it demonstrates their lack of basic story-writing skills - not a good sign for moviemakers, or this movie.
So there you have it - your latest serving of half-baked, money-grubbing commercial swill. A filthy insult to the original film. 1/10.