Load me up for “The Matrix Reloaded”

Albert Einstein once explained to an interviewer how he enjoyed sitting in his easy chair, running simple mathematical equations through his mind, ones that he had solved many times before.  They presented him no challenge, but they were good for merely working the muscle between his ears.  The Matrix Reloaded is something similar, dripping with pseudo-philosophy and Stephen Hawking/Carl Sagan-type cosmic gobbledy-gook, none of which means very much, but it’s fun to try to follow along just to see if you can construct some semblance of logic from it.

The only way that you aren’t aware of this being the first of two sequels to 1999’s The Matrix is if you’ve been stuck in one of the pods depicted in that film, so I won’t insult your sense of pop culture knowledge by presuming to outline the buildup that film provided for this one.  The struggle to free mankind from the prisons created for them by the computers they themselves created continues, and Neo (Keanu Reeves) is realizing, without knowing the name for it, that he’s being held up as his generation’s Jesus Christ.  I almost expected the crowds of Zion, the last human city buried deep in the Earth’s crust, to beg to be allowed to wash his feet.

The machines from above are beginning to burrow their way to Zion, launching an all-out assault on this last vestige of free man.  Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Zion’s closest thing to a religious fanatic, is convinced this is the prophesized last battle before mankind emerges victorious, with Neo, being the also-prophesized “One,” leading mankind to its final victory.  Along the way, however, Neo discovers that he may lose his lover Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and that Morpheus’ beliefs are not only flawed, but may be totally wrong.

After The Matrix, we expect lots of slam-bang action from The Matrix Reloaded, and we certainly get it, even more unreal, fantastic scenes than the original.  Since those who are aware of the Matrix’ true nature are not bound by laws of reality as the rest of us are, the action sequences are not constrained by logic, and the directing brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski certainly didn’t worry about logic in topping their previous effort.  In particular, a sequence where Neo must single-handedly battle more than a hundred duplicates of the now free-agent Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) is so frenetic and surreal that I found myself almost laughing in amazement.  This sequence, known to some as the Burly Brawl, is filled with CGI and 360-degree camera work that are the next step in the evolution of “bullet-time,” as introduced in the first film.  There is also a 15-minute chase/fight sequence on speeding cars, tractor-trailer trucks and motorcycles on an open freeway (a freeway built especially for the movie on an old navy base in Oakland, California) that simply defies explanation.

However, there are those who are criticizing The Matrix Reloaded for its few moments of long-windedness that interrupt the action sequences.  These folks are missing some of the point.  Sure, your summer bullets-and-profanity-type blockbuster requires high octane fight scenes and car chases, and The Matrix brought choreographed wire-work martial arts sequences to the mainstream, but it also used something akin to a New Age philosophy to give the story a more cerebral feel, if only in appearance.  Reloaded is merely taking that quality to a new level, in the same way the action sequences are larger and louder as well.  Laurence Fishburne exhibits an almost Shakespearean tone when preaching to the masses of Zion about their upcoming struggles.  When Neo meets The Architect, he who claims to have created the Matrix, this man/program (we’re never really sure which) waxes on and on about choice and the nature of events and cause and effect to such length that I was amazed he didn’t need to draw a breath more often.  Some in the audience when I saw the film even chuckled at the length of The Architect’s sentences. 

Hence, the point.  If it seems that Man ponders and discusses endlessly the eternal question, “why?," it’s because we really do.  How else do you explain John Edward and Miss Cleo finding the appeal they do, albeit on a much less cerebral level?  The Matrix presented us with a scenario where everything we know is actually false, and there’s another layer of “real” above it.  Reloaded goes a step farther, making us wonder if there’s more than just the one layer. 

As the middle installment of a trilogy, Reloaded does exactly what it’s supposed to do: not waste a lot of time retelling the story of the first chapter, maintain and build the anticipation for a climax and throw some incredible visuals at us to make us all want to get in line for the next one.  There is so much more that I have not even mentioned, characters and elements to this universe we did not see in the first film, so take that as an indication of how much there is to absorb from the story.  The movie is worth your eight bucks for the Burly Brawl and the Freeway Chase alone, but the movie being good on the whole is a bonus.  It’s great when a movie as highly anticipated as this one turns out to be worth waiting for.  Sure, it ain’t Einstein, but it’s fun to work through it, just for the exercise, if nothing else. 

Larry Smoak
May 15, 2003

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