In attempting to decide how to review The Matrix: Reloaded, I considered several different approaches.

First I thought about discussing The Matrix series as a long exponent of Bishop Berkley's philosophy of Idealism. Berkley, as we all know, believed and argued that physical matter did not exist (think: “there is no spoon”). Berkley’s Idealism was built around the belief that the only thing’s that truly existed in reality were minds, and ideas. According to Idealism, physical reality (things) is made up entirely of our perceptions. That is, nothing exists independently of perception. If no one looks at a tree, then the tree fails to exist. I realize that I may be giving the film maker’s too much credit.

Next I considered that this movie could be taken as a rumination on the problem of free will, and Determinism. Consider that the Oracle is something like Laplace’s demon, a super-intelligent machine that can forecast the future from the laws of physics. If she can see the future, then free will is a myth. Of course, I don’t think the writers had this in mind at all.

Then I considered the film as religious metaphor. Neo is a messiah figure. The name Neo is an anagram of “one”, more interestingly Neo means “new”. Trinity, if you don’t see the religious significance in that name, well you haven’t been paying attention to Sunday morning television. But then, it sort of runs out there. So, no deeper meaning lies waiting.

So, maybe this story is a rumination about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. Other movies have done that theme. Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Terminator, just to name two. If this is so, it seems like a lot of trouble just to cover ground that’s already well trod.

But perhaps I’m doing the film a disservice by even considering the philosophical questions it raises. Really, where the rubber meets the road, this movie isn’t about ideas. It’s about images. The visuals are the core of this film. And visually speaking, The Matrix: Reloaded, is something new. The best way I can describe it is as Live Action Anime.

I’m not going to delve into a long synopsis of plot. That would be counter productive. The plot is barely there to begin with. Instead, a brief look at what happens will do:

Neo (Keanu Reeves) is doing duty as a new messiah. He’s busy being followed around by believers, and trying to be alone with Trinity(Carrie Ann Moss). We see Zion (okay, another nod toward that religious metaphor I talked about earlier) where the humans live. The machines are on their way to destroy Zion. Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity must return to the Matrix to find the Oracle (they should have called the oracle Delphi, that would be cool). They do. The Oracle (Gloria Foster) sends them to find the key maker (Randall Duk Kim).

Things blow up. People are shot, stabbed pummeled, sliced, diced, and beaten. They find the key maker. He leads them to the “source” (not real clear on what the source is). Neo meets The Architect: the program that created the Matrix. Big Spoiler Ahead: Neo learns that he isn’t the messiah, but is in fact a control system created by the Matrix to help keep the humans in line. He is one in a long line of “ones”. He has to choose between saving Trinity and attempting to save humanity. We all know that he’ll try to do both.

So, that’s the plot. More or less. But none of that is really important. As I said earlier, the important thing is the visual style. Look at the opening. Trinity, dressed in black leather (of course), rides a motorcycle off the roof of a building, jumps from the motorcycle in mid air, flies through the air, kicks some butt (those high kicks are nearly worth the price of admission), and has a gun fight in slow motion while plunging from a sky scraper. This moment was when the Live action anime idea first came to me. She looks like a very sexy cartoon (don’t give me trouble: yes, cartoons can be sexy, think of Jessica Rabbit. Heck, think of Bugs Bunny dressed like a girl (I’m just kidding on that second one)).

In one key scene Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) “clones” himself (we don’t know how he does this) so that about a hundred on him can try to kick Neo’s butt. A clever mix of wire work, and CGI allow Neo to do things that break nearly every law of physics. It is hard to look away. Neo is a cartoon. Really. A great cartoon, but a cartoon, none the less.

The best fight scene comes between Neo and Seraph (more religious metaphor, that). Seraph, played by Sing Ngai, is the Oracle’s body guard. This scene is relatively simple. No massive CGI, just fighting helped by wire work and lots of training. It is beautifully choreographed. Fun to watch. I wish the movie had more scenes like this.

The chase scene on the freeway is exciting. It is helped immensely by two albino twins (Adrian and Neil Rayment) who can become incorporeal. Strange effect, this. When it suits them they become ghosts as bass through objects.

A new character who is beautiful, but really is given little to do is Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith). She is a former lover of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne, and by the way, I can’t see Fishburne without thinking of him skinny and about sixteen years old in Apocalypse Now). She is the captain of another ship, who gets involved in the action near the end.

The acting is what you would expect. Wooden is too charitable a word. Reeves does his best to portray the worlds biggest paper weight, devoid of anything that looks like a true human emotion. Fishburne can’t really help it. I mean, the dialogue he’s forced to recite would sound clunky in Olivier’s mouth. Moss showed us in Memento that she can act. Unfortunately, she’s doing none of that here. Anothy Zerbe, who can also act, isn’t on screen long enough for us to even judge his performance.

I would recommend that the film be cut by twenty minutes. The scenes in Zion are a bad idea. The film Maker’s are making a stab at character development. This is ill advised, as they don’t have the talent for it. This sort of cartoon isn’t about character, it’s about explosions.

The one scene I enjoyed in Zion was the huge quasi orgy (I know, I’m a pig, so sue me). I only enjoyed this for the huge variety of nipples (again, I know, I’m a pig). This fun scene is intercut with a love scene between Trinity and Neo. The love scene should have been excised. It is dead and emotionless. It fails to be sexy. It fails to convey anything about the characters. It simply fails.

Normally I go for character driven movies over plot driven movies. This movie has no plot that we can find (unless we are very charitable, and bring our own subtext with us, as I attempted to do at the beginning of this review). The attempts at character development are painful in the way they fall flat.

But, I couldn’t help enjoying the visual aspects of the movie. Think of it as a cartoon. Watch a lot of Anime before you go. I suggest Tenchi, and Cowboy Bebop. Check your brain at the box office, buy plenty of popcorn, doze through the Zion scenes (be sure to wake up for all those lovely nipples), then enjoy the explosions and the physics bending fights. Be prepared: the film ends in a cliff hanger of sorts. We are given no resolution. We must wait for the third film.

A final word: 15 minutes of very loud credits are followed by a trailer for The Matrix: Revolutions (this is, after all, a trilogy of Matrices). If you have the time, tough it out. I enjoyed the trailer more than I enjoyed the first thirty minutes of this film.

That is all.


Recommended: Yes