Good, but not great (partial spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 2003)

I am a huge fan of the original Matrix, and must say I am rather disappointed by this sequel. It's still an entertaining movie, but it hardly lives up to the hype. It suffers from pacing issues(perhaps it's just me, but it seems that nothing really happens until Neo met the Oracle, which feels like more than an hour into the movie). And the CG in some of the action sequences is obvious and obtrusively fake that it feels more like a computer game than a movie.
The action sequences themselves also suffers from 'pacing issues'. There is a lot of repetition of moves in the same fight. I mean it's really cool at first, but for me, it gets old before the scene ends. I feel like a blasphemer for saying this, but I got tired of watching the 'Hurly Brawl', i.e. fight with 100 Smiths, halfway before it ended.
I think the brilliance of the first movie's visual effects was that they were never 'redundant'; each action sequence has its own 'signature moments' that stood apart from the others. In this movie, while here is more action, most of them are similar, so there is actually less new, exciting things to see or cheer for.
Feel a bit bad for not giving it a higher rating, but I can only give it a 7/10.