great sequel, but better prequel (no spoilers)

Rating: 8/10 (15 May 2003)

I thoroughly loved The Matrix, and enjoy it more after having seen its first sequel. The Matrix: Reloaded served as a good sequel, but it serves as more of a prequel to the 3rd (and final?) installment, The Matrix: Revolutions. Obviously, from the time we first saw a teaser trailer for Reloaded, we've known that a 3rd film would be released, and a mere 6-7 months after Reloaded. Reloaded was chock-full of special effects that actually put The Matrix to shame... or is it that we've seen so many copy-cats of the original in the last few years that "bullet-time" seems outdated? Either way, there are a lot of similar, yet better special effects in Reloaded. Some very intense, mind-boggling fight scenes were included in the movie that are, alone, worth the time spent in watching it. As for the story line, it continued the saga of Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and the gang versus the artificially intelligent Agent Smith and his cohorts, but also brings into the game a few new villains and allies. It's not so much that the villains and allies just popped into existence, as it seems with a lot of sequels, but that they weren't needed to be mentioned in the original, and the way the original was written, some of them were mentioned, just not by name. It is obvious that either the whole story was designed/written before the first movie, or else the Wachowskis are just really good at making up nonsense that eventually makes sense in a sequel. Anyway, as I said in the summary, this was a great sequel, but since we were expecting a cliff-hanger to make us go see Revolutions as well, it did have to include a lot of content that leads up to its successor. All in all, I thought Reloaded was worth my time and money to see, being the Matrixite I feel I am, and I can't wait to see the finale this fall.