Mediocre

Rating: 5/10 (17 November 2005)

After seeing the first installment of this series over and over again, my expectations where high indeed. That sequels can work and not be worse than their counterparts has been demonstrated by the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "Kill Bill". That sequels sometimes do not work at all, on the other side, is shown quite impressively by the "Matrix" trilogy.
Seriously, what were they thinking? 'Well, we are out of ideas, but the first one was a big box office success, so we simple *have* to do a sequel!'? Well, it has had to be something like this, otherwise I cannot understand why they released this pile of horse droppings.
Okay, the special effects are again quite nice, although there are scenes where you can see quite clearly that it is all mainly CG. The "wow" effect is gone, of course, and we do not see much that is genuinely new. So, from the "eye candy" point of view, this sequel does not add much.
Story-wise it is even worse. We see lots of new characters, mainly inside the Matrix. All this seems like a zoo of some sorts, because not one of these characters is actually important or unique. They are just bizarre, and form the setting for a string of (albeit impressive) action scenes.
And this is what is left of the first "Matrix": an uninteresting action flick. No philosophical reflexion, no unanswered questions anymore. Everything that made "The Matrix" interesting has vanished here, being replaced by a simple "good vs. bad" theme. And after a (too) long series of fight and flight sequences it simply... stops.
Yes, the second and third part of the "Matrix" should more likely be one long film rather than two separate installments. The ending of this part (if it can be called that) is quite unsatisfying: one simply is left hanging in thin air. Upshot: very disappointing.