Wachowski Money Machine, Part 1

Rating: 1/10 (6 June 2003)

The Wachowskis have managed to fool the general public into thinking that Reloaded and Revolutions is one story that needed to be divided into FOUR parts (and I mean FOUR, not including the original film).
Like Star Wars, or any other movie with multiple sequels, the writers never really thought about making a sequel. The Wachowskis, instead of taking the opportunity in crafting a movie that lives up to the expectations of the original, cash-in on their own popularity by making a movie that's 99% fluff.
What little there is to "think" about is merely a vague notion that the Wachowski intentionally leave blank, because they themselves did not know what they wanted to do with it.
Reloaded introduces characters that no one really cares about, and do nothing with them, except have them fight or be a reason to fight about. Smith, perhaps, is the singular exception to this. He can't save the movie, but is one of the few things that make this movie bearable.
The symbology throughout the movie is obviously that of Judeo-Christian religion. Congratulations, you've just joined the hundreds of other movies that also use this symbology. Essentially, all the Wachowskis did was open up a mythology book and name characters after the people they found in there. It's not really subtle or unique.
Action? You will find no artistry in the action in the Matrix Reloaded. In terms of cinematic "fat," this is one of those movies that's excessively obese.
The fight scenes here are made to... distract people from seeing that there is little in the way of an actual plot in this segment of this "2-part movie". You can literally cut all but one of the actual fight sequences out (the Smith fight), since they have NOTHING to do with the story, and you'd have a boring hour of people talking about philosophy.
Speaking of which, the fight scenes are extremely ugly. The first THREE fight scenes are the Wachowskis trying to do John Woo and Jackie Chan, only very poorly. It actually HURT my eyes watching Neo and the Agents go at it. UGLY with a capital "UG", even for Wire-Fu.
Smart marketing. As many people have said, one can only understand the Matrix Reloaded's meanings by watching the "Animatrix," the original "Matrix", and the video game, "Enter the Matrix," and THEN go out to watch "Matrix Revolutions." Buy/see them all, you MIGHT buy yourself a clue as to what the Matrix sequels really are... a cash-cow for the Wachowskis.
Final Thoughts
Acting: Wooden and contrived. Not a single memorable character except Smith, and even he is not immune to being a bit... shallow.
Special Effects: Dominates the movie, the reason anyone sees it.
Plot: Incomplete. The last thirty minutes of the film reveal anything really meaningful to the story thus far.
Overall rating: 3 of 10 (I'll give the other points to Revolutions, the OTHER half of this "movie").