A lacking sequal

Rating: 7/10 (18 May 2003)

*SPOILERS* I absolutely loved the original Matrix and gave it a 10. In Reloaded, I was hoping for a big twist or something really cool to happen but it never eventuated. I am hoping Revolutions will fill this.

Criticisms:
The story had little plot. I mean, what was it really about? Some sentinels are coming to Zion. An agent gets into Zion. Neo finds out some stuff and has a few fights. That's about it.
In the original, Morpheus was so important in the original Matrix. For some reason, in this one, he is degraded to just more cannon fodder. It would make no difference if he died. The same with Trinity, I don't think it would have had any effect if Trinity had died apart from Neo feeling bad for a while. No great loss. (Maybe they should have made her pregnant).
A lot of the fun in the first one was the normal people in the Matrix reacting to Trinity, Neo, Morpheus, the agents, etc. In fact, a lot of them got killed. In Reloaded, all of this is missing and some of the reality of what they were actually doing is trivialised.
Another thing missing was a scene where the good guys just totally annihilated the bad guys. You quickly lost the feeling that they were very powerful in their abilities, skill and weaponry.
By the time I had seen the first 5-10 minutes of this film, I was sick of the slow motion. I joked to myself, "Oh hell, this movie is going to take twice as long to watch". In the original Matrix, the slow motion was used 'sparingly' for something special. In Reloaded it was used for every piece of action and seemed like they used it as much as they could.
I was frustrated with what seemed like a 10-minute sex scene that added little to the story. I was always impressed that the original Matrix was such a cool movie and free of cheap sex scenes. It seems every movie has to have one nowadays and this was no exception. I believe there were other ways to express the characters relationship and if they had to put one in, make it shorter.
Some of the fight scenes were ridiculous and over-extended. OK we get the idea; there are lots of Smiths. Neo could see he wasn't killing them so why did he keep fighting them when he could just fly away?
The motorway scene also seemed over-extended. What else could you possibly do on a motorway? I suppose they did build it themselves and want to get their moneys worth, but they drove and flew, forwards and backwards, in cars and trucks and motorbikes, and they went over them, under them, beside them, shot at them, collided them, exploded them, jumped from car to car, from car to truck, from truck to car, from truck to motorbike, from motorbike to truck... Have I missed any?
Some of the conversations (with Smith, Architect, Oracle, French guy, etc) were too long and they tried to use the whole dictionary in their conversations.

Commendations:
There is some excellent camera work, especially during the fight with the Smiths and on the motorway.
Special effects were awesome. It is hard to tell effects from stunts. I especially enjoyed the truck crash and I'm still trying to figure out how they did that fight with all the Smiths. Very clever.
The soundtrack was great and not too intrusive. Although I would have like a kick-ass tune like the one used for the lobby scene in the original Matrix.
I liked seeing Zion and it is huge and quite well done.

Summary:
On the whole, it is definitely worth seeing. I absolutely loved the original Matrix so was very disappointed that this one didn't add very much at all. I am holding my hopes out for Revolutions. As I previously stated, I gave the original a 10. Reloaded, I give a 7.

-KENT