What a disappointment!

Rating: 4/10 (26 May 2003)

I can't say I was expecting Reloaded to be as good as the original Matrix. I'd heard Reloaded was stepped down a rung or two from the first movie, but I wasn't expecting a movie this poorly contrived. By trying to stretch a good movie into a series of epic proportions (a la the ever increasingly inadequately named Star Wars trilogy, or the Fellowship of the Ring series), the creators of Reloaded introduced too much repetition, too much melodrama, and way too much reliance on special effects and the action scenes. Add in a groaner of an ending, and Reloaded becomes one of the most disappointing sequels I've seen in a while.
There's nothing unique about Reloaded whatsoever. It's Star Wars meets Superman meets The Chinese Connection meets Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon meets The Ten Commandments, with bits of pieces of the original Matrix concept thrown in for good measure. I guess the downside of trying to appeal to everyone is the tendency to lean toward what worked before. Hey, this is a sequel, right? But the reliance on concepts from far too many other films warps the feel of the series. In the first thirty minutes of the movie, it seemed like I'd been watching more scenes from a Star Wars sequel than from a Matrix sequel.
There's enough melodrama in this movie to float a soap opera for an entire season. What's with all the personal tension? What's with all the kissing, or the dance-orgy in Zion? What's with the Merovirigian's wife? Melodrama and hypersexualization wasn't the material that made the first Matrix such a good film. The relationships between characters like Morpheus and the Commander, or Link and his lover, just seem inappropriate for a Matrix film. It was the concept of the story and the uniqueness of the action scenes that made The Matrix what it is.
And there's plenty of action in Reloaded, no doubt. The action scenes are by far the strong suit of the movie, with a dizzying array of special effects. The fight scenes play off the unique style of the original Matrix. Reloaded relies so heavily on these scenes, however, that they lose their effectiveness quickly. The fight scene at the playground between Neo and the Smiths wouldn't have been such a yawner if it ended much sooner. The thirteen-minute kung-fu samurai car chase was a little out of its league, too. The repetition of many of the same fighting effects in Reloaded had me checking my watch during a few of the action scenes.
When the ending finally did roll around... well, I'll be honest. It was a total cop-out. If you want to find out what happens to everyone, you'll have to see Revolutions. Most of the viewing public already knew that would be the case, but Reloaded is almost shameless in how it cuts to an ending when it does.
In the end, I am glad I saw Reloaded in the theater. I wouldn't have known what I was missing if I hadn't. Now that I do know what I would have missed, I can be confident in my decision to save Revolutions for when it hits the rental shelves. The visual effects of Reloaded were nice, but nothing extra special, and nothing that couldn't be appreciated just as much at home. The emphasis on melodrama was straight up awful, though, and a lack of the unique features that made The Matrix so entertaining keeps Revolutions from getting half as good. And so, since I gave The Matrix an 8, Reloaded can't get any more than a 4. If Reloaded was meant to be packed with action and melodrama to the point of being corny, the movie may have been a bit more tolerable. But Reloaded takes itself way too seriously to be corny, and thus, it turned into a snoozer instead.