The Matrix Reloaded

Released 2003
Stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett Smith, Monica Bellucci, Lambert Wilson, Harold Perrineau Jr., Harry J. Lennix
Directed by Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski

The Matrix Reloaded is a big departure from The Matrix. The first story was a small personal one about Neo (Keanu Reeves) hooking up with Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and his crew, but The Matrix Reloaded is bigger in scope. It takes us out of the world of the Matrix and plops us into the enormous underground city of Zion (I'm guessing the writers aren't Arabs). My biggest problem with this transition is with the character of Morpheus, who was bigger than life in the first movie but becomes an average, almost pathetic character in Reloaded. Laurence Fishburne, who has apparently been eating at the buffets in between movies, plays Morpheus with the vocal intonations of James Earl Jones playing Othello, and he spouts his cryptic mumbo jumbo about "The One" and the prophecy as if he were delivering Shakespeare. That worked beautifully in the first movie because we thought Morpheus was "the man." In Reloaded, we learn he's just another captain in Zion's military, and there are a lot of people who actually think he's crazy. He comes across as ridiculous in this new context, because he's grounded in the reality of Zion instead of the virtual reality of The Matrix.

In the end, is this movie worth seeing? I say yes for the action scenes. Although they lack any sense of urgency, they are balletic, poetic, and a lot of fun. Especially when they go to slow motion and the camera changes angles--those shots are the definition of poetry in motion. Then there's the car chase, which normally puts me to sleep, but the fight on the top of the semi-truck was fresh and exciting. However, the series is starting to move into cartoonish areas with the twin ghosts, Agent Smith able to replicate himself at will, and Neo flying around like Superman. Will the third movie become even more absurd, or will it come back to some semblance of reality?

Summary by Bill Alward, May 18, 2003

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