Full price for half a film?

Rating: Null/10 (18 May 2003)

The fights are wonderful, the CGI effects dazzling, the Wachowskis' imagination as fertile as ever. But I couldn't help feeling that what I was getting was not so much a separate film in an ongoing series(think The Godfather, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings) but only Part 1 of the sequel to The Matrix. Without the second film, Matrix Reloaded means nothing. It's a collection of terrific scenes bundled together in a plot that won't make sense until the third film hits the cinemas at Christmas. If you want to know what Matrix Reloaded is all about, you're going to HAVE to go to number three. So what the studio is getting is, in effect, two full price box office admissions for one film split into two. I might put up with this for a TV film playing in two parts over one night but I feel severely ripped off having to wait six months to discover what the film I saw this weekend is all about.