*** (out of ****)
Starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Henry Lennix, Harold Perrineau, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Anthony Zerbe
Directed & written by Andy and Larry Wachowski
2003 R
Remember at the end of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” video game, where you have to fight the endless clones of the Shredder? I swear there’s a scene just like that in “The Matrix Reloaded,” in which Keanu Reeves is beset by an army composed entirely of the same guy. He does his best in a fistfight that gets progressively more ludicrous as the clones pile on, until finally he reverts to tactics that would make the Three Stooges proud.
“The Matrix Reloaded” is the sequel to “The Matrix,” a movie that takes a great premise and does almost nothing with it, besides use it as an excuse for gravity-defying slow-motion gun battles. I enjoyed “The Matrix” on a visceral, kinetic level, but I kept expecting more twists and turns. I kept expecting the rug to be pulled out from under me one last time and, with “The Matrix Reloaded,” it finally has. Better late than never.
The clever premise of the two “Matrix” movies is that the world we know is an illusion, brought on by a giant computer. The real world is a desolate grey wasteland, where humans are kept alive only to have their brains plugged into the illusory world (the Matrix) so that the giant computer can run off our “mind energy.” Or something like that. But there exists a resistance movement that has freed itself from the machines. Their plan is to bring down the Matrix from the inside out, by entering the illusory world, where they can bend its physical laws. Hence the gravity-defying slow-motion fistfights.
Among the resistance we team up with Our Heroes from the first movie, including Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie-Anne Moss. Things get interesting when they discover that certain obsolete or malfunctioning programs have gone into hiding within the Matrix, disguised as human beings, to protect themselves from deletion. Some are good, and some are bad, including the resurrected villain from the first movie (Hugo Weaving). Our Heroes must navigate carefully among these newly-formed alliances. Fishburne is their leader, but Reeves is “The One” (why they don't call him "The Chosen One" is anyone's guess), foretold by prophecy to bring an end to the Matrix. He has begun to see into the future, and doesn’t like what he sees. By the end of the movie we’re not so sure if there is a prophecy, or if what he’s seen is the future at all.
Much of the “mean Christ” allegory of the first film has been thankfully forgotten, although in his long black trenchcoat Reeves looks an awful lot like some kind of angry Jesuit. Fishburne, as well as the shifty-eyed programs he interrogates, give long-winded, vague, and possibly meaningless explanations about everything. Their talk is almost as frustrating as the last couple seasons of “The X-Files.” Multiple, compounded adjectives and big words are especially hard to understand if an absurd, overlong kung-fu match has caused your brain to atrophy.
One of the reasons we go to the movies is so see amazing things, and “The Matrix Reloaded” has some pretty amazing sights. Chief among them is the underground city where the resistance lives, miles and miles tunneled out of the rock, all grimy and industrial, with a maze of elevators and bridges. The city is the product of the latest computer-generated special effects and, I’m sorry, it doesn’t look “real” for an instant, but it’s still quite impressive. Another neat trick is a car chase up and down the freeway, in which our POV is constantly swooping beneath overpasses and moving vehicles. These shots would be impossible without computer trickery, but here the effects are almost seamless. Like the original “The Matrix,” the illusory world is cast in a terrific silvery-grey atmosphere, under a nearly colorless sky, where everyone seems to wear leather and work in a white-walled industrial compound where the hum of machinery is a constant companion.
Then there are all the fights, set to symphonic strings playing over hip-hop backbeats. The kung-fu is almost too good, too flawless; big budget movies seem able to call upon these kinds of battles with endless variation. In “The Matrix Reloaded” there’s too much reverence and not enough humor. If a movie fight isn’t going to portray the real demands of fighting—like getting hurt, tired, scared, or frustrated—maybe it should be tongue-in-cheek. Aside from the aforementioned clone combat, this kind of slyness only pops up once, when Reeves and a bodyguard get into a fight on a table. They keep trying to trip each other, until their struggle virtually turns into a tap dance. At the conclusion of this battle the bodyguard solemnly utters, “you cannot really know someone until you have fought with them.” For some reason I was the only person in the theater laughing.
“The Matrix Reloaded” has only one joke, played again and again, which is that the resistance fighters and their computer opponents “under-respond” to everything. No one gets hurt or tired or does much more than turn his head for a second when he gets punched hard enough to put a hole through a wall. This is all explained by the fact that, because they are bending the physical laws of the Matrix, the pain is dulled and their energy is boundless. But emotions are similarly muted. All the combatants, good and bad, night or day, spend most of the movie behind sunglasses, with minimal expression. When confronted with villains who can walk through walls, Carrie-Anne Moss’ response is typically deadpan. When these villains get run over repeatedly all they can muster is a few clipped syllables of frustration. It’s funny. For a while.
Not just sequels, but entire sagas, seem to be the new direction in big budget movies. All three “Lord of the Rings” movies were shot at once, as were “The Matrix Reloaded” and the final installment of the trilogy, “The Matrix Revolutions.” “Reloaded” doesn’t so much end as stop, with a big “To Be Continued…” over the last frame. But fear not, a preview for “Revolutions” comes after the end credits, and you’ll only have to wait until November to see how everything turns out.
Finished May 18th, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Friday & Saturday Night
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