{"id":2134,"date":"2024-08-06T21:05:43","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T21:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2134"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:29:12","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:29:12","slug":"the-matrix-reloaded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/06\/the-matrix-reloaded\/","title":{"rendered":"The Matrix Reloaded"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Matrix Reloaded <\/strong>(2003)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 138 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sci-fi violence and a scene of sexuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: The Wachowskis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: The Wachowskis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Don Davis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bill Pope\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 15, 2003 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $281.6M (US)\/$739.4M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I saw The Matrix Reloaded<\/strong> 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\u2019t anything to get or not get. In fact, it isn\u2019t about much of anything at all. There\u2019s virtually no plot. It\u2019s just a cool-looking sci-fi-actioner with a whole heap of pseudo-philosophizing. Visually, it\u2019s very impressive. Intellectually, it\u2019s like a term paper written by a college student for his Philosophy 101 class two days before it\u2019s due. It\u2019s all BS! This is NOT an expression of disapproval; it\u2019s more like amusement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Just because it doesn\u2019t have much of a plot doesn\u2019t mean nothing happens in The Matrix Reloaded<\/strong>. Quite the contrary, there\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s one of the best chase scenes ever committed to film.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Between the action and kung fu fighting, once again choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), there\u2019s 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\u2019s troubled by a dream he had of Trinity dying during a mission inside the Matrix. They\u2019ve 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 \u201cThe One\u201d, 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 \u201cThe Keymaker\u201d. He, in turn, will take Neo to the person behind the Matrix, \u201cThe Architect\u201d. That\u2019s about it, I guess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Oh 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<\/strong>. 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\u2019s martial arts choreography, it\u2019s really cool. \u00a0Equally cool is the realization of Zion, a post-apocalyptic industrial city populated by unplugged people. It\u2019s 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!).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by The Wachowskis, The Matrix Reloaded<\/strong> is a dazzling display of special effects and computer-generated action. That\u2019s when it\u2019s at its best. It falters a bit when it comes to the supposedly weighty philosophical themes. This time around, it\u2019s pretty silly. Characters say things like \u201cIf we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?\u201d and \u201cWhat happened, happened and could not have happened any other way.\u201d We also get exchanges like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everybody believes what you believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cMy beliefs do not require that they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds heavy, but it\u2019s really not. It\u2019s 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\u2019s recited by the actors. Aside from that, the cast does a decent job in The Matrix Reloaded<\/strong>. They know they\u2019re 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 <\/em>and sexy Monica Bellucci (Brotherhood of the Wolf) as the unfaithful wife of a crime figure inside the Matrix.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As I\u2019m sure you know, The Matrix Reloaded<\/strong> is a lead-in to the third and final part of the trilogy. On that level, it\u2019s pretty good, but it\u2019s no Empire Strikes Back. It\u2019s a silly, kinetic sci-fi-actioner that makes for good weekend viewing. It\u2019s fun, but don\u2019t be fooled by its quasi-philosophical musings. It\u2019s all BS!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 138 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (sci-fi violence and a scene of sexuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: The Wachowskis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: The Wachowskis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Don Davis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Bill Pope\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 15, 2003 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett Smith, Harold Perrineau, Gloria Foster, Harry Lennix, Randall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/The-Matrix-Reloaded-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2981,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions\/2981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}