There is a serious glitch in the Matrix

Rating: 3/10 (16 May 2003)

Like most fans of the Matrix, I discovered this little gem at my local DVD rental store not on the big screen. It has since found regular rotation in my DVD collection. In 1999 audiences were blown away by thought provoking plot, the cutting edge special effects, dark foreboding cinematography, and the gritty hard core score. The Matrix has rightfully earned a spot in cinematic history.
But that was 1999. Today the movie's ground breaking special effects are seen in cereal commercials and TV shows. Hare core music is now so closely associated with darker cinema and television that it has almost become passÃ©. Even the wildly exaggerated physical feats have shown up in other cinema such as in 2000 with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Since hearing of the even possibility of a sequel I've been eagerly awaiting where the Wachowski brothers were going to take Neo next. Viewing their uniquely bizarre 1996 movie Bound only fueled my desire, because they proved that they could get great results from actors as well as CGI. I was now ready for cinema to be taken to another level.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what the Wachowski brothers have done with Matrix Reloaded is just flatter themselves. The 138 minute long feature should have been called Matrix Exaggerated, because that is exactly what they have done. The Matrix had several intense fight scenes, Reloaded more than quadrupled the number of fight sequences. The Matrix had a quirky seemly out of place older character in the Oracle. Reloaded added to that with the Keymaster. The Matrix had Neo and Trinity's love affair. Reloaded upped the ante Morpheus' love triangle and a new relationship between Link and his wife.
Looking more like a setting and characters for a music video than humanities last holdout, the characters of Zion must have exhausted what was left of the brother's creative juices, because the best villain they could come up with is a character killed in the first movie. Through a vague unrealistic plot twist Agent Smith has been reloaded, and reloaded, and reloaded and.... Other foes included two twins with such outrageous appearances that they drew laughs from the audience during a somewhat serious scene. The dread-lock clan pair looked more like powered donuts than formidable opponents.
Cadillac and Ducati must have more advertising dollars than Bell Helicopter because a car chase replaced the ariel sequence of the Matrix. Or maybe they were just told you can't have a successful action film without a car chase. The overly drawn out chase has so many near misses that viewer's confidence that the heroes will make it removes the drama of the chase leaving only eye candy.
What is the Matrix? It might have been the question that drove Neo, but it was also what gave the original the narrative backbone to stand on. As far as storytelling is concerned the only thing Reloaded is standing on is the Matrix's coattails. Most of the budget must have gone to the actors, the special effect department, fight scene choreographers and the overly zealous costume designers, because not much attention was given to writing a good script.
I can only imagine what pressure the Wachowski brothers must have been under to follow up the critical and financial success of the Matrix, and I was so ready to enjoy the fruits of their effort. I went to the cinema to see movie magic, but after seeing The Matrix Reloaded all I came away with was Movie slight of hand.