OK, as we are nearing Christmas I thought I would do another post just before we hit Christmas day and this one is yet ANOTHER revisitation (I know! I know!) and this will be of the sequel to the Matrix: Matrix Reloaded.
The sequels of course never have received the accolades of the original and generally considered as being inferior, but are they? And is Reloaded that mediocre??? Well, let take another look...
And yep there will be the usual warning ahead...
PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!!
STORY
So, the film begins roughly 6 months after the events of the first Matrix film, with Neo (Keanu Reeves) now firmly having established his full powers in the Matrix and his function as "the One" who is still a crew member on Morpheus's ship, and he and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) and now a couple. Neo however is troubled with nightmares of Trinity falling to her death after engaging in battle with an agent.
Meanwhile however Morpheus receives a message from one of the human resistance group's spaceships, lead by Captain Niobe (Jada Pinkett) who organises a full meeting of the other ships to meet in the Matrix. At the meeting it is revealed that one of the ship's last messages before it was destroyed was there will be an army of sentinels (the machines from the first film that attacked Morpheus's ship at the end) that will breach Zion within 72 hours, intent on destroying the city and its people.
After the meeting Neo encounters a few agents, defeating them, he flies to find the Oracle, who is nowhere to be seen in her apartment. Later on Morpheus and his crew arrive back in Zion, and at a large meeting later on Morpheus tells the people that the machines are coming to the city, but they should not fear as they will stand their ground and fight, after this a party (or rave if you like!) ensues.
After the party is over, Neo receives a message from the Oracle asking that he meet with her, as he goes to, he first has to fight her bodyguard Seraph (Collin Chou) to prove he is "the one" to him. The oracle at their meeting explains that she is part of the Matrix, and in order for the one to save Zion, he must reach the source, but in order to do that, Neo will need to find another program called the Keymaker, who can open the hidden portals to the source, but he is held by another program called the Merovingian. After their meeting is over, Neo is confronted by a familiar figure, Smith (Hugo Weaving) who explains he is now unplugged from the system and a rouge program and he attacks Neo with his multiple clones but Neo manages to fight them off and escape.
Soon after Neo, Morpheus and Trinity meet with the French accented Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), a powerful program, who refuses to give up the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim). However after their meeting, Merv's wife, Persephone (Monica Bellucci) betrays him by leading Neo to the Keymaker, which lead the Merovingian to send his men to attack Neo and others. Neo manages to fight off Merv's men, who escapes before Neo can get to him, meanwhile Morpheus and Trinity flee into the city as they are chased by the Merovingian's bodyguards, the Twins, who are shape shifting programs that walk through solid matter. Morpheus eventually manages to defeat the twins, but soon after is confronted by agents who are out to eliminate the Keymaker. Just before Morpheus and the Keymaker are about to be killed by two agents who crash two big trucks into each other, Neo flies in and rescues them both (as one of his superhuman abilities is the power of flight).
As the clock is ticking down in the real world for Zion, Morpheus and Neo go into the Matrix with the Keymaker to reach the source. The Keymaker leads them to a portal, but they are ambushed by a group of Smiths, who Neo and Morpheus fight off, but as the Keymaker opens the door that leads to the source, the Smiths open fire at the Keymaker, who closes the door just after Neo and Morpheus get into the room, riddling him with bullets. And just before he dies the Keymaker tells Neo which door leads to the source, and gives him the key to open the door, and other door will take Morpheus home.
Neo uses the key to open the door to the source, which is then flooded with bright shining light, in the room he meets with an old bearded man, wearing a white suit, who calls himself the Architect (Helmut Bakaitis), who reveals some rather shocking truths to Neo about the Matrix, which will have a devastating effect for Zion and for Trinity...
THOUGHTS
It has to be said that even though The Matrix Reloaded isn't quite in the same class as the original, it does succeed in expanding on the Matrix universe and it introduces Zion properly and the rest of the human resistance and it is still quite entertaining as an action film. And it does allow an audience to see how these characters fit into their real world as opposed to the computer generated virtual reality world of the Matrix itself.
The story also neatly brings in the concept of Smith no longer being an agent, or another way of putting it, a computer program conforming to its function of the Matrix and instead he has become more a computer virus spreading his way throughout the system. The film also works well when it comes to its action scenes which are excellent and its main highlights include the long freeway scene and the burly brawl between Neo and the multiple Smiths.
PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
Performance wise things are mainly good here even if they aren't all quite top notch.
And to start off Keanu Reeves despite his wooden moments, still delivers a likeable performance as Neo, although you could say he is a man who shows as little emotion at times as Ivan Lendl does! (who was a former World No.1 tennis player and former coach to also former World No.1, Andy Murray). Reeves delivers all his lines in a hushed monotone and as a result he doesn't make that great an impact on an audience but regardless of that though Reeves still has his good moments in the film and he is more than capable of handling the film's action scenes.
And as for some of Keanu's good scenes for starters there is the scene where he confronts the three new agents that barge in on the resistance meeting and as he effortlessly blocks one of the agent's moves he says "Huh! Upgrades!" before he easily fends them off.
Then there is the scene where he is forced to fight Seraph, the program that protects the Oracle, in order to truly prove his identity to him. And Seraph says "I needed to make sure that you are the One" and Neo simply says "You could have just asked!".
Then of course there is the aforementioned big fight scene between Neo and Smith and his clones where Smith unsuccessfully tries to copy Neo into one of himself. And after Neo escapes and jacks out of the Matrix safely, Morpheous asks of Smith "What was he doing to you?" and Neo says "I don't know what he was doing. But I remember what it felt like" and Trinity asks what and Neo says "It felt like I was back in that hallway...it felt like dying".
Then there is the scene where Neo meets with the Architect and at the end of their meeting, Neo is clearly fed up with the Architect's pompousness and says to him just before he leaves "If I were you, I'd hope we don't meet again!" and the Architect tells Neo "We won't!".
BIG SPOILER COMING UP IN NEXT PARAGRAPH!!!
Another good scene from Keanu is when Neo rescues Trinity from falling to her death after her fight with the agents and he flies her up to a rooftop however Trin passes away from her gunshot wound but Neo refuses to let her go. So, Neo holds Trinity tightly and says "Trinity, I know you can hear me, but I'm not letting go! I love you too damn much!" and he puts his inside her and restarts her heart, bringing her back to life!
And last of all is the moment where Neo tells Morpheus and Trinity what the Architect told him and how prophecy of the "One" ending the war is false. So, Neo tells Moprheus "The prophecy was a lie. The One was never meant to end anything. It was all another system of control". Morpheus however looks hurt and shocked by this new and he says "I don't believe that" but Neo says to him "But you said it yourself. How can the prophecy be true if the war isn't over? I'm sorry. I know it isn't easy to hear, but...I swear to you it's the truth".
Next up is Laurence Fishburne who does fair better as the great Morpheus but he too has to endure playing what is a pretty one dimensional character. Nonetheless Fishburne has some good scenes in the film such as his opening scene where Neo says to his new sceptical operator, Link "Given your situation, I can't say I fully understand your reasons for volunteering to operate on my ship. However, if you wish to continue to do so, I must ask you to do one thing" and Link asks "What's that, sir?" and Morpheus simply says "To trust me".
Another good scene is after Morpheus, Neo and Trinity meet with the Merovingian and they leave empty handed without the keymaker and Neo says "Well that went well!" and Trinity says "Maybe we did something wrong?" and Morpheus says "No, what happened, happened and it couldn't have happened any other way". And Neo asks "How do you know?" and Morpheus says "We are still alive!" before exiting the lift.
And then we have one of Fishburne's best scenes, the freeway scene, which itself must rank as one of the best action scenes in modern cinema and Fishburne get's one of his best lines where he tells Trinity to drive onto the freeway and she says "You always told me to stay off the freeway" and Morpheus says "That's true" and Trinity says "You said it was suicide" and Morpheus says "Then let us hope I was wrong!".
And this is followed by Morpheus's pretty cool fight scene with the agent in which Morpheus actually manages to hold his own against the superior agent before he and the keymaker get caught into a sticky situation as both remaining agents turns their trucks and drive right for each other on a collision course. And in the scene Morpheus looks on worried and says to himself "Neo, if you're out there I could use some help!".
And last of all in what is a pretty pretentious moment but still an enjoyably cheesy one is the line where Morpheus looks on in shock as he sees the sentinels (SPOILER) have destroyed the Nebuchadnezzar and he says "I have dreamed a dream, but now that dreamed has been taken from me!".
Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, who does well in her role as Trinity even though her character is a little one dimensional (well they are all mostly!) but at the same time we do get to see more of Trinity's human side here, which works well.
And Carrie-Anne has some good scenes that include the one where Trinity and Neo arrive back on Zion and when they finally get a chance to themselves in the lift they drop their things and kiss each other. And Neo between kisses says to her "How long to recharge the Neb?" and Trinity says "24, maybe 30 hours" and Neo says "Some people go their entire lives without hearing news that good!".
Then there is the scene Neo, Trinity and Morpheus go to meet with the Merovingian and as their meeting finishes one of Merv's guards is about to put their hand on her and she says "Touch me and that hand will never touch anything again!".
And lastly there is the scene where Trinity infiltrates the building where Neo, Morpheus and the Keymaker are to turn the power off to let them into the room to access the source. And as Link says there is a problem as the power is still on, Trinity sets herself to go into the Matrix and she says "I will not stand here and do nothing and watch them die" and Link says "Trinity we've got five minutes" and Trinity says "In five minutes I'll tear that whole goddamn building down!". And after that there is of course Trinity's fight scene with the agent which leads into the opening scene of the film where Trinity dives out the window of the building in bullet time slow-mo.
Hugo Weaving next up is great here once again as Smith and he provides the film's most entertainign performance as the former agent, who is now a powerful rogue program that is roaming the Matrix cloning himself.
Weaving has his fair share of good moments which include his first main scene where he meets with Neo and they engage in their "burly brawl". And Weaving also get's the best lines in the film as well such as in the same scene where he tells Neo "We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free. There is no escaping reason; no denying purpose. Because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist!".
And as Smith surrounds Neo with his clones he says to Neo "We are here, Mr Anderson to take back what you tried to take from us..." and thrusts his hand into Neo's stomach and he says "Purpose!" as he tries to copy Neo but ultimately fails. And in the same scene as one of the agents arrives on the scene, Smith stops him and the agent looks at him and says with surprise "You!" and Smith says "Yes me!" and he clones him saying "Me, me, me!" and after he clones the agent, the cloned Smith says "Me too!".
And later on there is the scene where Smith stops Neo from entering the room leading to the source and he says to him "Sorry but this is a dead end!". And Neo asks him what he wants and Smith teases him by saying "Still using all the muscles except the one that matters?" and he says "I want what you want. I want everything!" and as Morpheus produces his gun and says "Would that include a bullet from this gun?" Smith smiles saying "Go ahead! Shoot! The good thing about me is there are so many "me's!" just before his clones surge out and attack Neo and Morpheus.
And the last few cast members I will mention include Gloria Foster who makes her last appearance as the Oracle before she passed away and her character succeeds in adding a little extra colour to the proceedings.
Foster's main scene is a good one where the Oracle meets with Neo and she has a good line at the end of their meeting where she tells him "It seems that every time we meet, I have nothing but bad news. I'm sorry about that, I surely am. But for what it's worth, you've made a believer out of me. Good luck, kiddo!".
Lambert Wilson is also pretty good in his role as the Merovingian, the French crimelord (or whatever he is) who holds the keymaker and likes to cheat on his wife Persephone (Monica Bellucci).
Wilson also has some good moments especially in his first scene where he talks about how much he loves the French language and he speaks a little in French and says after "Its like wiping your arse with silk!". And later as he finishes his meeting with Neo, Trin and Morph (for short to save me typing a few more keys!) he says to them "The Keymaker is mine and I see no reason to give him up... No reason at all..". And as he is about to leave Persephone asks him where he is going "Cause and effect, my love. I drink too much wine I need to take a piss!" (but he tends to follows an attractive women into the toilets!).
And later on Persephone betrays her husband by handing over the Keymaker to the Neo, Trin and Morph and as three of them have to face off Merv's men, Neo says "I'll handle them". And the Merovingian says "Handle us! He'll handle us! You know your predecessors had much more respect!!" before his men open fire on Neo who simply freezes the bullets in the air and they drop and Merv says "OK so you have some skill! Kill him!".
And the last two I will mention are Monica Bellucci as Persephone who is good in her role as Merv's sexy wife who ends up betraying him as she is "so tired of his bullshit!". And in the scene where Persephone releases the Keymarker, Merv then barges in with his men and he protests to her in French and asks her after "How could you do this? You betrayed me!" and Persephone says "Cause and effect my love!". And Merv is outraged "Cause?!! There is no cause for this! What cause?!" and Persephone says "What cause? What about the lipstick you are still weaing?" and Merv aghast says "What lipstick?! There is no lipstick!" and she says "She wasn't kissing your face, my love!" and he nervously rubs his face.
And quickly Jada Pinkett-Smith (Will Smith's Mrs's) does OK in her role as Niobe who it is reveal was once the love interest of Morpheus (and its later hinted that she might be again in the Matrix Revolutions) but despite her character being one of the slightly more interesting ones, she is underused in the film. Niobe would however feature more prominently in The Matrix Revolutions as well as the video game that was released at the time, Enter the Matrix, which also featured various cut scenes and characters that were a whole lot more interesting than Neo, Morpheus or Trinity!
And the last two I will mention are Harold Perrineau as Link, the Neb's operator who is somewhat sceptical of Morpheus and Neo's power at first but soon comes to believe in them both. And Harold's most notable scene comes near the start of the film after Neo fights off the agents and takes to the skies and Morpheus asks him "Where is he Neo" and Link says "He's doing his Superman thing again!". And lastly there is the scene where Neo saves Morpheus and the Keymaker just in time from being burned alive after the agents collide their two trucks together which burst into flames and Link then shouts "Yes!!" and collapses with relief into his console.
And last last of all is Helmut Bakaitis as the Architect, who designed the Matrix.
And Helmut delivers his dialogue in a very pretentious manner and also in a way which is pretty confusing as he keeps using words such as "Apropos" and Vis-a-vis" not to mention "concordantly" which also tends to be quite annoying!
Nevertheless Helmut has some good lines, particularly last monologue where he indicates the two doors to either side of Neo. So, the Architect tells Neo "There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the Source and the salvation of Zion. The door to your left leads back to the Matrix, to her... and to the end of your species. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you are going to do, don't we? Already I can see the chain reaction: the chemical precursors that signal the onset of an emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you to the simple and obvious truth: she is going to die and there is nothing you can do to stop it!".
So, Neo decides to take the door that leads back to Trinity and the Architect scoffs and says to Neo "Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness!". Neo then looks coldly at the Architect and with a quiet threatening tone says to him "If I were, I would hope we don't meet again" and the Architect looks at him and says "We won't!" just before Neo walks out.
DIRECTION AND MUSIC
Finally getting onto the directors (and writers) of the film, The Wachowskis do an excellent job here (who are now of course both living as trans-gender women and are named Lana and Lilly!). And despite some lapses in pacing and filling the film up with pretentious dialogue they know how to stage action scenes and there are plenty of awesome ones at that here particularly the freeway sequence, which must rank (in my humble opinion!) as one of the finest action sequences in modern cinema.
And music wise the Wachowski's reuse their composer from the first film, Don Davis who provides another pretty solid score, which fits the tone of the film very well even if it is at times a bit overbearing in its intensity and volume. The film also makes good use of another Rage against the machine track "Calm like a bomb" as it plays over the film's end credits and the film's soundtrack must rank as must listen for any home cinema enthusiast as its an amazing mixture of surround sound explosions and gunfire as well as some awesome deep bass for the bullet time moments.
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
As for The Matrix Reloaded's flaws.....yeah ok the film of course is not without its flaws and to start off the pacing of the film is a bit inconsistent especially as the first 30 or 40 minutes are definitely a bit too slow, as it reveals Zion and the people of the city, which while its important it also makes for a rather boring sequence at times. And film's opening sequence is also pretty cheesy and ridiculous with its various camera zooms and pans of the Matrix code along with Don Davis's overblown intro music.
There is also of course a new annoying character the Kid (Clayton Wilson) who is some young eager wannabe, who was freed from the Matrix, who desperately wants to be a part of Morpheus's crew, although I'm sure Neo probably wished they had re-inserted him back into the Matrix judging by his expression! And as I said there are probably too many characters to introduce to the film, with so many human resistance crewmembers, you can't devote too much time to them and basically why bother, as you only have two hours to tell the story.
Then we have that cringeworthy rave sequence in Zion not to mention Morpheus's rather pretentious speech in which he goes on and on and finally finishes by shouting "Tonight, let us tremble these halls of earth, steel, and stone, let us be heard from red core to black sky. Tonight, let us make them remember, THIS IS ZION AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID!". Uggghh! Not to mention the film also features that very awkward looking sex scene between Neo and Trinity during the rave sequence as well and their love story remains a pretty awkward one but to be fair I think it does develop a bit better in The Matrix Revolutions.
And this brings me onto the characters in general as the Matrix trilogy really does suffer from a lack of colourful three dimensional characters with the three leads being a tad dull and one-note although Neo and Trinity do have the odd moment of humour here and there but Morpheus is pretty much straight up serious all the way! There are exceptions of course with Smith, the Merovingian and the Oracle, who are all quite colourful and interesting personalities in their own different ways.
And nowww we get to the Architect who has to be the trilogy's most pretentious and confounding character as surely left many a viewer infuriated by his vagueness and obscurity and he simply cannot saying ANYTHING in a straight forward way. Such examples of this include when he talks to Neo and derides for having hope and he says "Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness!". And another is this one "It is interesting reading your reactions. Your five predecessors were, by design, based on a similar predication: a contingent affirmation that was meant to create a profound attachment to the rest of your species, facilitating the function of the One. While the others experienced this in a general way, your experience is far more specific. Vis-à-vis: love". Acchhh just get to the point already!!
In fact that remains a problem with the trilogy in general in that none of these characters can communicate in a concise manner they ALL have to deliver pretentious long drawn out speeches when they could just say what they mean to say in or two lines! But instead we get the Merovingian spouting about human desires in such a long winded way, the Architect blabbing on in such an incoherent manner. And lastly not to mention even Morphues yakking on about how they can end the war by reaching the source as he sermons " I see purpose. I believe it our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us, the very meaning of our lives!". Aghhhhhh shaddupp!!
Anywayys that's me finished looking at the flaws.
SUM UP
So to sum up (again!) the Matrix Reloaded for all its faults, for me is still a very entertaining and even underrated sequel, which has some of the trilogy's best action scenes too. So it remains a bit of a curate's egg as there is definitely some good stuff here but at the same time you need to take the film's shortcomings as well. But if you can forgive that its still an enjoyable film and I personally think its not quite as bad as people give it stick for.
OK, so that's it for now and I'd just like to finish by wishing you all Merry Christmas and hope you a good one and I'll be back on here with yet ANOTHER post or two before the year is out!
So, till then Merry Christmas!
Thanks for sharing this post with us.Filmydost
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