Not the same as the first one

Rating: 5/10 (15 May 2003)

The one-line summary of mine pretty much sums up my opinion of the movie. As much as I hate to say it, the special effects were a bit overdone. The fight sequences were WAY too long, and I really fear for what Revolutions has in store for me.
With that said, I'll get to the technicalities of Reloaded. First, there's the editing. This movie was entirely too long, and I don't mean the talking. The writing was very witty, albeit a little grating on the nerves at times (the French guy comes to mind). But there were many scenes which could have been cut out altogether and not have lost any of the intended feel the Wachowski's wanted.
Second, the fight scenes were not nearly as involving as the first movie. I think that the producers felt that there was no way they were going to top the action sequences of the first one, so they instead threw the money into CG car crash scenes and slow-motion special effects. By the way, I'm sick of seeing the slow-mo thing now. STOP IT. It was neat in the first one to get a better understanding of how fast Neo and Morpheus and Trinity fight, but we know that now. Don't keep doing it.
And was Wo-Ping even on the set for the fight choreography? The hand-to-hand fight scenes were terribly paced. They would speed up at a nice clip, then it looked like the actors were having trouble remembering what they were supposed to do next, almost to the point of flinching. The fight scene between Neo and the Oracle's bodyguard comes to mind.
Lastly, I feel like the producers and directors thought the audience was stupid. Gratuitous T & A in the party scene was really unnecessary. We know that Neo is the one. We know that he and Trinity are lovers. We know all this. There is no need to re-hash it, much less in the graphic sense that it was done in.
Anyway, I'm sure most of you will undoubtedly skim over my review anyway. I just felt that as a die-hard Matrix fan, I had to let those of you in league with me have a decent heads-up.
I'm out. Later.