Fight Scenes.... Incredible. And that's about all.

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 2003)

Matrix Reloaded is a pretty cool movie. The choreography of the fight scenes, the digital and special effects, all of that stuff is awesome.
But effects and fighting don't make a movie.
The first 45 minutes to the movie is almost painful to watch. We have a 10 minute dancing sequence that we could have all done without, a lot of wooden, forced dialogue, just just plain a lot of uninteresting stuff.
What the first movie had going for it -- ingenuity, novelty of the idea -- this one definitely does not. The first one had a great story, an intelligent purpose. This one -- it's pure actions fluff! It isn't even a shadow of the first one's glory.
Is it a bad movie? Not at all. It's definitely slow at times, but the fight scenes with Neo are absolutely astounding. In this respect, it slays the first movie. But the Matrix should be the type of movie where it's not all about how much cool stuff Neo can do, and that seemed to be the driving factor of this one.
I miss the character and plot driven voyage the first movie took us on. This one is pure action -- and even then, it's sporadic, gapped by boring, forced dialogue that you really can't appreciate upon hearing the first time. To really understand what happened in this movie other than some really neat fighting, I'll have to see it again.
And the ending.... Well, it definitely leaves things open for Revolutions, but there's absolutely not closure whatsoever, like their semi-was in the first one.
Anyway, definitely worth seeing for the fight scenes alone.... But the trailer is extremely misleading, and expect a lot of gaps in the action where you might find yourself tapping your fingers in frustration and impatience.
7/10 for the fighting.
Steve McVey