Dear. God. No.

Rating: 3/10 (14 May 2003)

*Very semi-spoiler*
I'm not going to lie to you -- I thought the first one was, after repeated viewings, terribly dumb. I didn't expect to like this one that much, but the action scenes from the commercials seemed pretty decent, and hey, maybe there'd be more dialogue and character interactions.
Oh, there was more dialogue and character interactions, and that was the problem. The movie was HORRIBLY boring, mostly because the 2 hours and 18 minutes of it aren't action scenes. They aren't even dramatic. They're just terrible, and most involve Neo and Trinity making out.
The action scenes were for the most part decent. Visually they were great, but after about twenty or so of the same kind of punch, it gets a little boring. The freeway scene everyone was talking about wasn't as good as I expected it to be, and the scene with the replicating Agent Smiths (another scene people were looking forward to) only got interesting about halfway through. Most notable was the lack of any kind of major gunfight, which was a bit disappointing to me.
Despite the boring non-action and the mediocre action scenes, there's still one thing that makes the movie horribly flawed: the ending. Now, we all know this is just part two of a three part trilogy. But there needs to be at least SOME closure. Take a look at the LOTR movies - we know we're going to have to wait a year to see the next part, but the movies end on their own enough that it almost seems like its own movie and not just another "part". Well, Reloaded throws this convention out of the water, and just abrubtly ends...quite obviously, I might add.
I never thought I'd say it, but compared to this, the original Matrix was a cinema masterpiece. Maybe if the sequel stuck to its roots more instead of trying to pretend its something its not, it would have been more satisfactory.
((Note: as I was leaving the packed theater, we noticed a few people staying behind, saying "There's a trailer for the Matrix 3 after the credits!" If it was anything like this movie, I'm glad I left when I did))