Matrix Reloaded

RATING: A-

Ah, the Matrix sequels. You probably either loved 'em or hated 'em--or perhaps that's a better descriptor for strictly the third one, which polarized the crap out of fans. 

In this sequel to the amazing groundbreaking film the Matrix, Neo is still trying to figure out his role as the One and also dealing with visions of Trinity's death. Meanwhile, the rest of the free humans--residing in the last human city, Zion--are dealing with a big problem--the machines have finally discovered Zion and are digging towards it. Oh yeah, and as if that wasn't enough, Agent Smith somehow survived getting torn to bits in the last movie and now has figured out how to copy himself. A lot of times. 

This movie expands on the Matrix universe *a lot.* The first movie was admittedly pretty restricted to the Matrix itself, and Morpheus's ship the Nebuchadnezzer. In this film, we meet many, many more characters and actually see Zion. We also start meeting more of the Matrix programs that reside within it--namely the French-speaking Merovingian, and his Agent-like guards with ghosting powers. 

This one is also a lot more complex. During the first third of the movie or so, we see a lot more scenes with people being philosophical. There's a couple interesting scenes here, but some may easily get bored by this, especially if they're watching the Matrix strictly for all the awesome fight scenes. Don't worry, there's plenty of those too. But what gets *really* complex is when we meet The Architect--you pretty much have to be paying absolute full attention to the dialogue and also understand the Matrix universe to some degree in order to understand, since the guy speaks with a *lot* of big words. 

One could argue that this one is even more philosophical than the first. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? That's up for debate. Sometimes it occasionally does feel like they spend too much time with a couple of fairly meaningless philosophical scenes. It may just depends on if you tolerate this sort of thing well. 

Once we get to the fight scenes the Matrix is famous for, some controversy arises. This movie has been criticized for featuring a lot of meaningless fights--for example, Neo fighting a bunch of Agent Smiths certainly features no tension, since he can kick their butts easily now. It's still a *lot* of fun to watch him do so. (We even hear the sound effect of bowling pins rolling at one point.) The fight scenes in this movie still are a *lot* of fun, even if they don't have you worrying much for our heroes. 

Overall, this is a brilliant sequel that expands upon the first film the way a sequel should. It may not quite reach the heights of the first one, and you admittedly won't see anything as cool as "Bullet Time" in this film (well, the freeway scene does make a good run for it). But that doesn't mean it should be dismissed--far from it. And it does end on a cliffhanger--a rather odd one, to say the least. Again, you'll have to be paying attention to get it. So perhaps, we should end this review with a warning: simply casual viewers just watching for the fight scenes and literally nothing else may want to think twice. Everyone else should be in a treat, just as they were with the first one.