REVIEW Matrix Reloaded In short? it kinda sucked. In length? FYI -- !!!Spoilers!!! Some have forgiven the movie somewhat for being the middle movie, but I have not. It was at the same time flashier, and weightier. It did not balance well to have amazingly sequenced martial arts sequences intersperced with weighty, ponderous, difficult, philosophical and explanatory speeches. There was no flow there. But that is just a ten thousand foot view of the problems of this movie.

Most troubling at the detailed level was NEO's abilities. When we left the Matrix last, NEO, was able to see the Matrix as code like no other. He's able to tear apart an agent from the inside, stop bullets and fly. No when we reenter the Matrix we find that these abilites don't seem all that great after all, he can fly, he can see that the Oracle is a computer program, he can stop bullets still, but otherwise he still fights with kungfu? This doesn't make sense, and no explanation for this is given. No explanation for this is given.

I can think of a good one -- maybe using his powers to screw with the Matrix attracts the worst sort of attention. Every time he turns an agent inside out now, the powers that be do all they can do to stop him, other more powerful agents than are normally required, etc.

Really this is a failure of imagination and a falling back to tried and true, lets just see kungfu. But this ain't new any more, and the over the top fight scenes just don't really do it. Partly, I think, because he always wins. Part of the enjoyment of the first movie, was seeing him grow into his powers. That could have been explored more, he should be able to walk through walls, been able use his powers like Darth Vader, pulling shit from the walls, pulling bricks from a building to fight agent smith. We understand why the other humans rely on kung fu, but NEO should be past that. Or even funner would be NEO playing around with the super hero powers he has ( hey look Spider man, he look now I'm the incredible hulk), maybe a little drunk on his abilities, and maybe a little dissappointed now when he has to leave.

Other problems, are perhaps more nit picky, but why is the machine agent in exile, the French dude, so keen on beautiful women. Ok so he's into French Wine and decadence and whatnot, but that seemed a little too pat for someone who is into beautiful elegant code -- it seems more like they needed an excuse for Persephone to betray him.

They rave/sex FLESH scene. A fun video and great music perhaps, but just a tad over the top in my book.

My guess is that the ZION world is going to turn out to be another level of virtual reality, given NEO's sudden ability to shut down machine robots. Otherwise, they are moving into another level of kookiness that is just going to be even dumber.

Alas, I being human, had hoped that the hollywood machine might churn out a better movie.