Disappointing Sequel

Rating: 4/10 (22 December 2017)

I loved The Matrix. Still do, in fact. So I was extremely disappointed when I finally got to see the much anticipated sequel, The Matrix Reloaded. Now, I didn't expect it to be better than the first, but I at least thought it would be good. Unfortunately, it wasn't. It was total crap. If this movie had been made first, I can't imagine that there would have been any sequels made. Yes, it had some really cool effects, but that's really the only thing this movie has going for it.
So first off, the musical score was awful. Not once did match the tone of the scene. Music is supposed to be one of the most important aspects to influencing the emotion state of the audience throughout the film, so why exactly did they make it seem like they were just randomly pulling tracks out of a giant CD pile? Not once did I feel any kind of emotion at all... oh, wait... except for boredom, does that count? I guess I should be a bit more specific. I felt no amazement, no excitement, no sadness, no humor, and no satisfaction. I mean, I didn't even feel any tingling-sensation during the giant orgy scene in cave!
The next problem I had was with the extremely long and occasionally pointless fight scenes. In the first movie, the action all seemed to flow naturally throughout the unfolding of the story, but in this movie it feels like the only point is to have action scenes and the story has to do whatever it can to make that happen. How else can you explain the extremely weak lead-up to the much over-hyped freeway chase scene? And how can you explain any of the fighting at all, when at the end of the first movie Neo learns complete control and can take out bad guys from the inside-out? Oh yeah, that's right, they did explain that: "upgrades".
The worst of these pointless actions scenes was Neo's fight against the gang of agent Smith's. That scene went on forever! And halfway though, the characters seemed to switch from the actors we all know and love to some impressive looking yet definitely not-realistic computer graphic creations. When the fight was just about over, they cut to a close up of Neo's face, which was shocking because I actually forgot that I was watching a live-action movie. And then what's Neo do to finish this extremely long fight in which it was obvious within the first couple minutes that no one could win? He flies away! Yep, just flies away! Why the hell didn't he just do that in the first place!
And lets not forget about the cast of characters. Gone is the mystery surrounding all those we were introduced to in the first movie. Some new allies and villains were introduced, but we are given absolutely no reason to care about any of them. No clues are shared about their pasts that make us want to know more about who they are. No startling or secret ambitions are revealed that make us want to know what will happen to them in the future.
They introduce these two ghost-like guys dressed in all white who can phase through solid objects...and their sole reason for being in this movie is to fight. That's it. They introduce this one French dude who is supposedly a bad guy or something... but he really didn't seem very evil to me. When we meet him, he is just sitting there blabbing away about something that made little sense and had nothing to do with the story. Then he gives a piece of cake to a woman which makes her have an orgasm. Oh my gosh, what an evil man! I'm really scared of this diabolical mastermind now!
Anyway, I know a lot of my disappointment of this movie comes from knowing how wonderful the first movie is. I bought this sequel on DVD for my wife, and when I watched it again with her it didn't seem nearly as bad as when I first saw it that night in the theater. I'm sure that's because I already knew not to expect anything at all from it, and so I didn't. I just watched it for what it was, a pointless time-wasting action flick.