The Matrix Reloaded (2003) Warner Bros./Sci-Fi-Action RT: 138 minutes Rated R (sci-fi violence and a scene of sexuality) Director: The Wachowskis Screenplay: The Wachowskis Music: Don Davis Cinematography: Bill Pope Release date: May 15, 2003 (US) Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett Smith, Harold Perrineau, Gloria Foster, Harry Lennix, Randall Duk Kim, Nona Gaye, Monica Bellucci, Lambert Wilson, Anthony Zerbe, Helmut Bakaitis, Neil and Adrian Rayment, Collin Chou, Gina Torres. Box Office: $281.6M (US)/$739.4M (World)
Rating: ***
I saw The Matrix Reloaded at a special midnight preview and it blew my mind albeit not as intensely as the first one did four years earlier. Still, I felt a second viewing was warranted in order to absorb it all. I saw it again about a week later and made a startling discovery. There wasn’t anything to get or not get. In fact, it isn’t about much of anything at all. There’s virtually no plot. It’s just a cool-looking sci-fi-actioner with a whole heap of pseudo-philosophizing. Visually, it’s very impressive. Intellectually, it’s like a term paper written by a college student for his Philosophy 101 class two days before it’s due. It’s all BS! This is NOT an expression of disapproval; it’s more like amusement.
Just because it doesn’t have much of a plot doesn’t mean nothing happens in The Matrix Reloaded. Quite the contrary, there’s plenty going on action-wise. There are at least two bravura action sequences including a sustained freeway chase in which characters leap onto, out of and into vehicles while fighting each other. Cars, motorcycles and trailer trucks speed, crash and fly through the air. There’s also a pair of twins with the power of intangibility which allows them to pass through physical objects and bullets to pass through them. This sequence lasts approximately 14 minutes and never slows down. It’s one of the best chase scenes ever committed to film.
Between the action and kung fu fighting, once again choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), there’s a semblance of a storyline. Here it is in a nutshell. Neo (Reeves, Speed), the hacker endowed with special abilities once freed from the Matrix, continues the fight against the machines alongside his now-girlfriend Trinity (Moss, Memento) and rebel leader Morpheus (Fishburne, Boyz n the Hood). He’s troubled by a dream he had of Trinity dying during a mission inside the Matrix. They’ve been commanded to return to Zion, the last remaining human city on Earth, to come up with a plan to defeat the Sentinels that are coming to destroy Zion. As the prophesied “The One”, it falls on Neo to deal with it. This means another meeting with the Oracle (Foster in her final role) who tells him to seek out somebody called “The Keymaker”. He, in turn, will take Neo to the person behind the Matrix, “The Architect”. That’s about it, I guess.
Oh yeah, Neo once again encounters the villainous Agent Smith (Weaving, the LOTR trilogy) whose own powers evolved since he went rogue after refusing to be deleted. Most notably, he can clone himself. This is the other awesome scene in The Matrix Reloaded. Neo goes hand-to-hand-to-hand-to-hand (and so on and so on) with dozens of Agent Smiths in a playground. They keep coming and coming and coming. A seamless blend of digital effects and Ping’s martial arts choreography, it’s really cool. Equally cool is the realization of Zion, a post-apocalyptic industrial city populated by unplugged people. It’s where Morpheus delivers a rousing speech to the inhabitants who celebrate his words with an impromptu rave. Sweaty bodies dance, jump and gyrate to percussion-driven music while Neo and Trinity have sex (real sex!).
Written and directed by The Wachowskis, The Matrix Reloaded is a dazzling display of special effects and computer-generated action. That’s when it’s at its best. It falters a bit when it comes to the supposedly weighty philosophical themes. This time around, it’s pretty silly. Characters say things like “If we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?” and “What happened, happened and could not have happened any other way.” We also get exchanges like this:
“Not everybody believes what you believe.”
“My beliefs do not require that they do.”
It sounds heavy, but it’s really not. It’s an illusion created by the writers to lend gravitas to the proceedings. It works for a little while, but goofy dialogue is still goofy dialogue no matter how seriously it’s recited by the actors. Aside from that, the cast does a decent job in The Matrix Reloaded. They know they’re essentially playing comic book characters and run with it. New additions to the cast include Jada Pinkett Smith (Set It Off) as Niobe, the captain of another ship and ex-girlfriend of Morpheus, Harrold Perrineau (Romeo + Juliet) as the new pilot of the Nebuchadnezzar and sexy Monica Bellucci (Brotherhood of the Wolf) as the unfaithful wife of a crime figure inside the Matrix.
As I’m sure you know, The Matrix Reloaded is a lead-in to the third and final part of the trilogy. On that level, it’s pretty good, but it’s no Empire Strikes Back. It’s a silly, kinetic sci-fi-actioner that makes for good weekend viewing. It’s fun, but don’t be fooled by its quasi-philosophical musings. It’s all BS!
