A VAST improvement over Reloaded.

Rating: Null/10 (7 November 2003)

I have never been a HUGE fan of this series. I was not blown away by the original Matrix like most. Bullet time wasn't all that impressive, and I've never been a fan of Hong Kong style action movies. Plus it starred Keanu Reeves. How good could it actually be? But I still enjoyed it in an MTV-influenced kind of way. Now being the movie fan I am, I went to see Reloaded when it came out. When it was over I wanted my money back. Never in my life have I experienced such a overblown, self-important, mumbo jumbo spewing piece of dreck in my life. It does rate as one of the worst movies I've seen in recent years. Sorry fanboy geeks, cool fx do not a movie make. In fact some of the fx were pretty bad. What's funny is the big chase scene they claimed was going to revolutionize movies, was topped twice this year. (T3 and Bad Boys 2. But then NO chase scenes will ever top final chase in The Road Warrior) But again, being a movie fan, I had to find out how it all ends. I went in with zero expectations, and ended up having a lot of fun. Well, after the first half hour anyway. The battle of Zion is one of the great action specatcles of the last 10 years. It is so 'in-your-face' that you feel like you're in the middle of it. It is worth the price of admission alone for the chance of seeing that on the big screen. The chase through the mechanical tunnels with the hovercraft and sentinels is dizzyingly exciting. The ships can twist any which way, and they took my stomach with them. Fun times. And while it utilized too much of it's trademark slo-mo, the final fight between Neo and Smith is the epic brawl the series needed. I mean these are two gods in this world. The fight couldn't be confined to groundlocked round kicks. They fly around, duking it out all over the city (ala Superman 2). Nice visuals with the lightning. Plus the story moved a lot faster versus Reloaded. Sur the first half hour or so dragged while they mopped up the afterbirth of Reloaded. But once it got moving, it was "Get out of the way! Coming through! Lady with a baby!" fast. It may not wrap everything up at the end, but how could it? It's too lucrative of a franchise. If the current group involved in making this series decides to not make anymore, at least the studio still has a viable franchise to squeeze a few more dollars out of, and hire new blood to take over. So if you want your audio/visual senses overloaded, check out the movie. It's definately going to be demo material when it hits DVD.