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Essentially, the problem the Wachowski brothers were always going to have with The Matrix: Reloaded was that if it wasn't the greatest film ever made, they would have to take a hell of a lot of criticism. The Matrix came from nowhere, got attention mainly through word of mouth, and proceeded to blow away anything else that even remotely resembled something in the same genre. Sci-fi, action, thriller or a thought provoking movie? The Matrix was all these.
The brothers had always claimed that the story behind The Matrix continued after Keanu Reeves discovered that he was "The One", and went much further, and after kicking box office ass in 1999, Warner Brothers had no hesitation in signing the boys up for the final parts of their trilogy, and despite secrecy levels being comparative to military levels, the world waited and expected?
¤ The Story ¤
Much like the opening shots of the original Star Wars trilogy (or Episodes Four through to Six if you prefer) which all feature similar shots of a planet and an Imperial Star Destroyer, the Wachowski's open Reloaded much like The Matrix with Trinity being chased by an Agent.
The time scale puts the start of Reloaded at around six months or so since the end of The Matrix, so Neo has had time to explore his new role as The One, plus get himself a snazzy new wardrobe to make him look even cooler when he's plugged in. If someone tells him that pink is the new black, then I'd say he's going to look pretty damned stupid.
However, it's quickly discovered that the A.I. (Boo! Hiss! etc.) is sending big drilling machines down through the earth to Zion, the city of humans, with hundreds of thousands of Sentinels in tow to eliminate the exile human threat once and for all.
Morpheus returns to Zion to recharge his ship, where we can see the influence that Neo's "The One" has on some of the inhabitants of humanity's last city.
The council decide that Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and the new arrival in the crew, Link must find a solution within 72 hours or Zion will be destroyed. Unfortunately, they are going to be on their own as all the other ships are called back to Zion to prepare to defend the city against the Sentinel attack.
There's only one thing to do, and that's plug themselves back into The Matrix and go hunting for the Oracle who hopefully has some answers where they'll come across some old friends and foes?
¤ My thoughts ¤
Where do you start? First of all, if you're one of those people who can't take in a lot of information then you're not going to follow Reloaded particularly well. Information is thrown at you incredibly quickly, and you're not given enough time to ponder over what's presented before you're launched into another wonderful action sequence.
The film starts off at a fairly leisurely pace, although you're still flooded with information from the word "go". The lead up to entering the Matrix is a tad stilted with a (totally unnecessary) sex scene between Neo and Trinity, and a supposedly rousing speech by Morpheus to the Zion inhabitants which sits uncomfortably with what follows. However, once the action shifts to The Matrix, things start to take off? literally! Basically, to quote a 4 Non Blondes album cover, it's "Bigger! Better! Faster! More!" which is typically what sequels do these days. As you may guess, sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. In this case, I think the smaller fight scenes work better than the larger scale ones. An example would be the fight scene between Neo and the hundreds of Agent Smiths compared to the fight scene with Neo and Merovingian's goons in the ornate stairwell. The former is a huge, fantastically ambitious piece which I don't think lives up to the hype by being just a fraction too long, and I'm sure it's also where the special effects are noticeably poorer than the rest of the film whereas the other scene is between Neo and four other people and is elegant, exciting and doesn't wear itself out by being overlong.
The timing element of some scenes is an issue. Both the Agent Smith fight and the early scene in Zion are both overlong, by quite a long way (a few minutes each). Although, if the focus of the Zion scenes had been about general life in Zion rather than the presented dance scene, it might have been more effective. I suppose we have to remember that until this point, the Wachowski's only have two films under their belts as directors, not including Reloaded and Revolutions, and some errors like this are likely to creep in.
I felt there was a touch more humour in this movie than the first: Agent Smith shows his witty side and the Oracle provides a touch, just as she did in the first film. This is necessary because the characters lose a lot of their humanity when they enter the Matrix (I am unsure if this was meant, or if the story structure makes it that way) and sometimes it's nice to see a "warm" character (like the Oracle), or someone injected a touch of humour to the proceedings.
The cast, for the most part, do their job well. It's impossible to think of anyone other than Keanu Reeves playing Neo, despite the fact that he's definitely not the world's greatest actor, but this role almost seems to have been tailored for him. Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss continue the good work they did in the first movie, and the new character "Link" is excellently played by Harold Perrineau Jnr. It's to either praise or criticise the other actors when most of them have more fighting than talking to do, which should give you an indication of the amount of action in this film.
If the Wachowski's can be criticised for their direction in places, the same can't be said for the characters and story they've created. It's hard to adequately rate the story because at the moment there are too many loose ends which need tidied up (for example, the whole Agent Smith storyline seems totally superfluous at the moment), so any apparent plot holes must be overlooked until the final film is over. Some of the new characters (and returning ones) are very welcome. The dreadlocked twins, bodyguards of Merovingian's are excellent, even if they only appear towards the end and don't have much to say. The Oracle is great, giving out advice, answering questions and explaining things to Neo who has taken up his role of The One, but still has much to learn.
¤ The Cast ¤
Laurence Fishburne - Morpheus Keanu Reeves - Neo Carrie-Anne Moss - Trinity Harry J. Lennix - Commander Lock Jada Pinkett Smith - Niobe Gloria Foster - The Oracle Monica Bellucci - Persephone Randall Duk Kim - The Keymaker Harold Perrineau Jnr. - Link Neil Rayment - Twin #1 Adrian Rayment - Twin #2 Hugo Weaving - Agent Smith Daniel Bernhardt - Agent Johnson David A. Kilde - Agent Jackson Matt McColm - Agent Thompson
¤ Final thoughts ¤
To be honest, it's quite hard to judge this. I liked it overall, some of the stunts were amazing, but I thought some of the special effects weren't as ground breaking (or effective) as we were led to believe. With all the unanswered questions and information thrown at me, it will be a while before I fully get my head around this film.
The whole problem, I think, is that the Wachowski's have created too much. The full enjoyment of Reloaded is probably not going to be realised until you have experienced the game "Enter the Matrix" and the upcoming DVD "The Animatrix", both of which add back story and information which could be useful in understanding a lot of what goes on in Reloaded. For example, a passing mention is made of "Osiris", a hovercraft like that of Morpheus' "Nebuchadnezzar" which is destroyed after sending a message to Zion about the attack of the Sentinels. The story of the Osiris is one of the small features in The Animatrix, namely "Last Flight of the Osiris"
The Matrix was a film capable of standing on its own, despite being the first of a trilogy. Reloaded is not such a film, and the producer Joel Silver has always proclaimed that Reloaded and Revolutions are basically two halves of one film. This is the flaw which makes Reloaded less of an experience than it should be, but it's far from being a disaster.
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Excellent op! The sex scene WAS totally unnecesary, and I did get lost at certain parts.. I think too much emotion was brought into this one, which Keanu doesn't cope with very well, and gets in the way of some fantastic action scenes...
fb6668 28.09.2003 14:06
I enjoyed this film and thought the fight sequences were stunning, but it was tempered by two things: 1) The fact it's only half a story, since this and the next film are actually one story and 2) The amount of information that isn't actually included in the films. It seems a bit greedy that lots of the story is excluded from the films, and only comes to light in other Matrix products.
Mayrad 11.08.2003 19:56
Nice op. It only takes about 3 watches to truly understand it tho, and the sex scene is very important as it shows that humans can have what robots can't program - love. Seeing both humans and machines attempting this process shows the contrast which ultimately leads to the downfall of the machines. Mayrad :)
The Matrix Reloadeddelivers added amounts of everything that the first film had, with the ... more
exception of surprises. We see more of the "real world" in the "last human city" of Zion and we go back to the 1999-look urban virtual reality of the Matrix for m...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
The Matrix Reloadeddelivers added amounts of everything that the first film had, with the ... more
exception of surprises. We see more of the "real world" in the "last human city" of Zion and we go back to the 1999-look urban virtual reality of the Matrix for m...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Neo and the leaders of the human resistance discover that Sentinels are burrowing their ... more
way towards Zion. Estimating they have perhaps just 72 hours until an all-out assault Neo must return back into the Matrix and find the keymaker to gain access to ...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Sentinels swarm. Smith clones. Neo flies... but perhaps not even a Chosen One gifted with ... more
astonishing new powers can stop the advance of the Machines.Neo. Morpheus. Trinity. They're back for the powerful second chapter of The Matrix trilogy, and exciti...
Advantages: More arse kicking kung foo shenanigans. Awesome!!! Disadvantages: More arse kicking kung foo shenanigans.Hang on, didn't we see that in '99?
![The Matrix Reloaded (Widescreen edition) [DVD] [2003]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78498566.jpg "The Matrix Reloaded (Widescreen edition) [DVD] [2003]")
May 27th, 2003
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