The Matrix Reloaded Is A Load Indeed
Written: May 15 '03 (Updated May 15 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Weaving, the Freeway Chase
Cons: Speeches, speeches everywhere, but not a brain that thinks
The Bottom Line: The Bottom Line will make loads of money, no matter what I say
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| mfunk75's Full Review: The Matrix: Reloaded |
The most important moment in the ad campaign for the original "Matrix" had nothing to do with wire-fu, or bullet time, or red pills, or blue pills. It was the moment after Keanu Reeves, as intrepid messiah Neo Anderson, sees a bit of action that contradicts the laws of physics as he knows them. "Whoa," intones Reeves, in his best Ted 'Theodore' Logan voice. It's a moment most important because, despite the abundance of brainless elements (gunplay, martial arts,
Reeves himself), "The Matrix" still managed to be a movie with some intellect. It traded in ideas just as easily as it traded in corpses. And it did so without bogging the film down with long-winded expositional scenes, or convoluted plots. Its philosophies were complex, true. But it delivered them in easy-to-digest ways.
"The Matrix Reloaded", the first of two already-filmed sequels to that sci-fi masterpiece by writer/director brothers Larry and Andy Wachowski, forgets all the lessons its predecessor taught. It begins its story, about 6 months after the events of the first film, with the same kind of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo and political meandering that George Lucas discovered, and then abused to death in place of actual narratives, in the "Star Wars" prequels. We're clumsily introduced to a series of new characters: high councilors, ship captains, and army commanders. I see this parade of boredom passing in front of my eyes, and I wonder, "They traded in bullet time for this?"
Apparently, a quarter million Machines are digging their way to Zion, the last human city on Earth, and the clock is ticking on their imminent arrival. Meanwhile, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) is still chasing after the Prophecy, the Oracle, and quite possibly a Cyclops or two (it's all Greek to him). And Neo can't sleep. Cause he's having dreams. Bad dreams. Dreams where his ladylove, Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss), perishes.
And this is about as much of the plot as I could grasp. The rest of the film follows Our Gang as they traipse between the real world and the Matrix, getting themselves into situations that defy explanation. Cancel that. The situations they find themselves in don't defy explanation… they call for an overload of explanation. "The Matrix Reloaded" is an excessively talky movie. And quite often what it says neither moves the story along nor is interesting in its own right.
One scene that leaps immediately to mind takes place in a restaurant. I couldn't for the life of me grasp why we were there in the first place, but the characters seemed to know and at that point in the movie that was good enough for me. But then they encounter this dude Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), who is named for a dynasty of French kings but who, for some reason, borrows Mike Myers faux-German 'Dieter' accent¹ in order to give a 5+-minute speech on causality. That's right, a 5-minute speech -- a boring, banal, and utterly insipid speech -- in the middle of what is ostensibly an action film. And it doesn't even advance the plot! Not one inch! This kind of thing happens over and over throughout "Reloaded". After a while I found myself wishing for a cyanide capsule to bite down on, whenever the characters opened their mouths.
Not to be outdone, the simpler characters speak in the kind of paradoxical dialogue that has made countless episodes of "Kung Fu" baffling, and made me want to slap Yoda on more than one occasion. "If we never take time, how can you have time?" asks a feeble-minded old councilor, apropos of nothing. "I know because I must know… it is my purpose," asserts another old-timer. All this hooey accumulates until it becomes ridiculous and redundant. It'd be like Shakespeare writing out the entirety of Hamlet, when the only question he really wanted to ask was "To be or not to be?" The screenplay of "Reloaded" never approaches an insight that profound. Not even close, really.
So the screenplay sucks. That was almost a given, this being a sequel and all. Inspiration, except in rare cases ("Empire Strikes Back", "Godfather: Part II"), often dries up after the first installment. So what about the much-vaunted visual sense of "The Matrix"? Well, I'm sad to report that the reputation for originality the Wachowskis earned after the first film has somehow turned into a surprising propensity for thievery. They cop images, directly or indirectly, from such films as "Minority Report", "Aliens", "Young Frankenstein" (I kid you not), and the oeuvre of John Woo. Early on, when Link says of Neo, "He's doing his Superman thing," I had already decided that the scenery was stolen right out from under Tim Burton's "Batman" films instead.
That being said, when the Wachowskis set their mind on a set-piece, they pull wonders out of their hats like no special effects-heavy directors working today. There's a 15-minute freeway chase that leaves nothing left on the road. It is exhilarating, using the characters' super powers to full effect, while metal screams by at blazing speeds. As a sequence, it rivals the Pod Race from "The Phantom Menace" for sheer visceral excitement and technical achievement. Unfortunately, it can't even match that sequence's relevance to the plot. A dubious claim, but sadly, a true one.
Similarly, there's also an intense fight between Neo and hundreds of Agent Smiths (Hugo Weaving), that is a marvel of CGI camerawork and ingenuity. You've got to hand it to the Wachowskis: no matter how fast or complex their fights become, they don't shy away from showing the action, or hide behind an endless series of edits. They let you see every blow hit its mark. But once again, I am hard-pressed to find a reason for this fight to even be in the film. Except that it's been so many minutes since the last fight, and the audience is getting restless trying to grapple with the speeches and exposition that have gobbled up the plot.
Buried under this mess is a fine cast of actors. None of them make even a significant impression. Reeves, whose blandness worked perfectly in the first film, shows off his stone face yet again. Only there's none of the dramatic tension surrounding the character this time, as he's basically become omnipotent. Add to that a couple of new elements (Neo as burdened messiah besieged by gifts from his "followers", his insomnia, his visions), which are introduced and then never satisfactorily explored, and the character becomes a complete disappointment.
Fishburne's Morpheus treads into self-parody territory; he's become more a deluded egotist than a visionary. And Fishburne's self-important line-readings don't help matters much. Carrie-Ann Moss has the kind of face the camera loves, all angular features and icy stares. The problem is that her Trinity has been relegated to that most thankless of sci-fi genre roles: she's the hero's girlfriend. Moss does her best to inject Trinity with the same spirit and energy she had in the first film, but can't overcome the character's flaws.
Hugo Weaving almost gets out of the movie unscathed. His Agent Smith is still the most interesting character, made even juicier by Weaving's ironically mellifluous voice. He's the only one here who appears to be having any fun. But the character is somewhat diluted by the special effects used to clone him a hundred times over. And by the fact that he gets far less screen time here than the first film.
Amongst the newcomers, only Harold Perrineau, Jr. makes any kind of impact. After I got used to seeing him walk upright (Perrineau is best known as the wheelchair-bound narrator in HBO's "Oz") I realized that his Link is supposed to be the audience surrogate. Whenever something exciting happens onscreen, some insurmountable obstacle is overcome, it is Link's job to pump his fist in the air, and yell "Yeah!" The problem is that by the time this part of the movie comes around, the audience's excitement has been torpedoed by the clunky speechifying, and they no longer care who wins. Link's enthusiasm is thus all for naught.
Maybe "Reloaded", when viewed as the filling in a "Matrix" sandwich (between the original and the as-yet-unreleased "Matrix Revolutions"), will gain some competence in context. Maybe the sense of fun that the first film had, so lost here, will be found again in the next installment. Maybe. But when I read over this review, and realize that I've made several justifiable comparisons between "Reloaded" and the much-maligned "Star Wars" prequels, I'm not optimistic. Of course, I realize I'm just screaming into the void, and all I've said is irrelevant. As of this writing the film hasn't even been out in theatres for more than 24 hours, and it's probably already made its first $100 million. That's fine. Let the babies have their bottles. The milk I found in mine had most certainly turned sour.
Two-and-a-half stars for "The Matrix Reloaded". I'm rounding down to two out of sheer disappointment.
¹This is the second review in a row in which I've mentioned Dieter, a coincidence that I found most upsetting. No more upsetting than this movie, though. But upsetting nonetheless.
Recommended:
No
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Member: Mike Stone
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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