THE MATRIX RELOADED

By: Abbie Bernstein
Review Date: Thursday, May 15, 2003

Four years ago, THE MATRIX arrived and promptly added to the cinematic vocabulary. Yes, other movies (and TV commercials) utilized elements like the film's slowed-down "bullet time," 360-degree spins within frozen shots and other visual flourishes, but THE MATRIX popularized the techniques in a way that made them indelible and indispensable. The movie also had a very cool premise that got around the usually "so-what?" proposition that all of the action is taking place inside a computer by postulating a world in which the computer scenarios dictate real-world lives and deaths. Moreover, most of the people in the story have no knowledge of a world outside the computer and even the characters who understand the situation experience the computer's universe as vividly as their flesh-and-blood existences.

Brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski, who together wrote and directed the original MATRIX, return as scripters/helmers here. They honor the first movie's visual legacy and expand the scope of their story, but the former is handled with greater expertise than the latter.

In the first MATRIX, brilliant computer hacker Neo (Keanu Reeves) was recruited by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), captain of the Nebuchanazzar, who first proves to Neo that he is living inside a computer scenario, then gets Neo to fight against the machines that are literally feeding off the perpetually dreaming human population, who are hooked up to the computers as a power source. There are a lot of clues that Neo may be the prophesied savior of humankind, born to break the domination of the machines.

In THE MATRIX RELOADED, Morpheus, Neo and company head for Zion, the last remaining bastion of conscious human civilization, which is about to come under real-world physical siege by terrible squidlike machines. Neo, Morpheus and Neo's beloved Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), a powerful fighter in her own right, return to the Matrix to seek guidance in fighting the new threat, but discover that their reality is even more bent than they'd known.

THE MATRIX RELOADED is

thrilling to watch, with action sequences that are literally breathtaking (you find yourself exhaling in a whoosh when they end), an array of trippy concepts and sincere, appealing performances from Reeves and Moss, who play their fairly plain-spoken characters with becoming intensity. Hugo Weaving, who was a villainous computer program (in human form) in the first movie, returns here in a similar capacity as an entity who how to put this thinks a lot of itself. He's absolutely delicious, but it's symptomatic of one of the problems here that until one reads the production notes, it's not very clear that Weaving's Agent Smith is no longer serving the Matrix at all but instead operating out of sheer pique.

Indeed, Neo and Co. spend much of RELOADED dealing with villains who are either humans who know the truth but are out for themselves or rogue programs that aren't serving the machine overlordship but are dangerous in their own ways. The notion of variations and flourishes on the perils within the Matrix is a wholly worthy one that results in some satisfyingly bizarre situations, but in trying to keep us guessing, the Wachowskis get so ambiguous and obscure that some of it starts to feel unnecessary if programs controlled by humans are just as menacing as those controlled by the Matrix, then just explain what's going on and move forward, instead of spending time pondering the minutiae. Also, while Reeves and Moss make us believe that Neo and Trinity are essential to each other, the movie is much less emotionally successful when trying to persuade us of the gravity of clashes within the Zion military establishment. Some of it plays like Captain Kirk defying his superiors, minus the excuse that, in its day, this style of drama was standard rather than dated.

Still, THE MATRIX RELOADED is largely exciting, narratively imaginative and visually intoxicating. It doesn't pack the novelty of its predecessor, but how could it? It feels like what it is the fairly solid second act in what is shaping up to be an epic science-fiction three-act drama.

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