We were all waiting with baited breaths for The Matrix Reloaded and are still waiting with baited breaths for the end of The Matrix Reloaded. That is because there wasn’t one. The use of ‘To be Concluded’ was a pretty poor attempt to draw in an audience for the third film. Also, the first film was good as part of a trilogy, but easily made a damn good film on its own. The Matrix Reloaded was by no means comprehensible without having already watched its predecessor. That’s the basic stuff you need to know before you decide whether to go and see this. Now for the story itself:
Morpheus was an astounding character in the first film; a God-like figure, the sort of man you had respect for and a great faith in. In The Matrix Reloaded he’s evolved into a jargon-waffling beefcake who has little status and doesn’t really know a great deal very much. Firstly, we are introduced to the city of Zion, which seemed very tacked-on, like the writers hadn’t really thought about that when they started but got stuck on where to take the story.
In the first film, I for one got the impression that the real world consisted of Morpheus, his crew and his ship, and of course those pod things containing ‘real’ humans (where did they go???). Turns out that in actual fact there’s thousands of the ‘free’ all living in an incredibly grubby city, wearing incredibly grubby clothes, and looking well, grubby! There are commanders and counsellors and all manner of important people, leaving Morpheus a mere captain of one of many ships. His fight scenes, such as one with an agent on the top of a lorry, were poor; I could have done better than that! His whole character seems to have aged considerably and we hear so much about his ‘dream’ that I almost wanted it to be wrong. He had us all bowing down to him in the first Matrix: if Morpheus says Neo’s the One, then Neo’s damn well the one, but after watching Reloaded, I can’t help but think that if the future of Zion is in the hands of his dream, The Matrix 3 is going to be a huge flop.
Now the fighting: One of the features that made The Matrix so appealing (mainly to men!) was the amazing fight scenes. Don’t get me wrong, there were some equally impressive squabbles in Reloaded, but they just went on for too long. The best has to be when Agent Smith managed to multiply and Neo was stuck fighting 30, 40 Agent Smith’s at one time. It really had me on the edge of my seat, but as I and probably the rest of the cinema was thinking, Why doesn’t he just fly off?! Oh yeah, because Neo can do that now, didn’t you know?! Out of nowhere, he has learnt to fly, which was slightly unbelievable and made him look a little silly. After what seemed like half of the film, he realises he can’t fight that many agents (although you’d think The One would be able to do anything…) and he flies away. Later in the film, he has to fight off a group of the French (possibly) villain’s goons and while I didn’t count them, I recall there being only about 5. Yet it took him about the same amount of time to take them out as it did to give up on the Agent Smith’s. Pretty ridiculous for our hero.
For all the girlies watching for our male romantic Neo, there stands the one good part of the film. Despite the fact that Trinity is no oil painting, her relationship with Neo is almost ahhh-inducing. That is, until you see them having some of the other with those big ugly bolt things all over their bodies, nasty. Talking of nasty, there were far too many moments that people stuck their hands into other people, so to speak! The vilest being when Neo massages Trinity’s heart, I mean come on!
I had to doubt Neo’s abilities by the end of this film, and the film had so many flaws compared to the first one that I was actually able to see that not only was Neo’s long coat actually not very flattering, but also the whole theory behind The Matrix is so stupid. One very such criticism that I was pondering after watching the film was about reproduction! Ok, so in the Matrix someone gets pregnant, but how? Because in the real world mum and dad would be in separate pods, and so if it’s only virtual reality, surely the union would not result in a baby. But then everyone who exists in the Matrix exists in the real world because they can be freed, so how does that work if there’s never babies?! This was one of many mind-boggling questions I came up with, which although were equally applicable to the first film, it was good enough that I didn’t need to question it!
Lastly, they stole the Minority Report’s computer screens! Was I the only person who noticed that?
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Production Year: 2008 - Action/Adventure - Director: Christopher Nolan - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring:Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Well, they breed people as batteries, so maybe whenever they breed a new one, they decide who in the matrix will be its 'parents' - that could explain the baby thing. But it is a bit far fetched. And you're so right about Morpheous - he was cooler than cool in the first one & he was terribly anti climactic in this one. Shame, hope he's got a better role in the third film! Jami xx
jeszikca 04.06.2003 19:39
I liked this film, but only for the special effects! xx
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: Some effects are stunning, action is breathtaking Disadvantages: Car chase over-rated, terrible orgy scene, comes close to turning into Star Trek at one point
![The Matrix Reloaded (Widescreen edition) [DVD] [2003]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78498566.jpg "The Matrix Reloaded (Widescreen edition) [DVD] [2003]")
Jun 4th, 2003
very helpful by (100%):
