For all of its cosmic ideas and much-imitated special effects and kung fu moves, “The Matrix” (1999) was a relatively contained story about a man who plunges into a new world and discovers his great, innate powers. Neo (Keanu Reeves) was Alice down the rabbit hole, Dorothy out of Kansas, Luke Skywalker finding his destiny and Superman moving faster than a speeding bullet and leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
Although Neo has learned to fly like Superman in “The Matrix Reloaded,” the new movie owes its greatest debt to the “Star Wars” series. Too bad this second trilogy entry is closer to “Attack of the Clones” than “The Empire Strikes Back.”
“Reloaded” is filled with armies, assembled populations, space fleets and officials who debate pompously in council meetings and orate to the unwashed masses. The writing-directing Wachowski Brothers have taken the bigger-is-better rule for sequels to heart — and stomach and every other available organ.
The new movie is bloated and sprawling, where its predecessor was sleek and lean (even though at two hours and 18 minutes, “Reloaded” is just eight minutes longer than “The Matrix”). You thought Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) was a fun, droll villain in the first one? How ’bout an ex-Agent Smith who can duplicate himself into a hundred Smiths this time?
People will see “The Matrix Reloaded” if only for a demonstration of what a megamillons budget and state-of-the-art special effects can buy. But although the technical aspects don’t disappoint, the human ones do. Action scenes can’t be heart-stopping if the story hasn’t gotten your ticker going to begin with.
“The Matrix Reloaded” assumes its audience has entered the theater with a high level of emotional investment and complete retention of the first movie. Andy and Larry Wachowski don’t feel the need to remind anyone of what the Matrix is (“the real world” as nothing more than a virtual-reality program constructed by enslaving machines) or to engage us in any of the characters anew.
The first movie’s weak link, though, was Neo’s love story with Trinity, the slinky, tough action woman played with ultracool allure by Carrie-Anne Moss. Now the Wachowskis count on them to supply the most charged passions of “Reloaded,” throwing them into a Euro-slick love scene intercut with shots of the Zion natives stomping around at a sort of tribal rave.
It still doesn’t take. Destiny may have drawn Neo and Trinity together, but you couldn’t imagine them sustaining a five-minute conversation.
More remote figure
Because you experienced the first movie from Neo’s point of view, Reeves’ general blankness wasn’t a liability; you projected yourself into his gaps. But the Neo of “Reloaded” is a more remote figure, an opaque superhero caught up in a plot that dwarfs him. An army of 250,000 nasty machines is burrowing toward the subterranean city of Zion, which, if you remember the first movie, is the Earth’s only enclave of free people.
One of the human military leaders, Commander Lock (Harry Lennix), wants to assemble all available forces to fend off the invasion, but Morpheus, Neo’s mentor again played by Laurence Fishburne (but with more George Lucas-inspired ponderousness), thinks the key to victory is Neo, a.k.a. The One. Adding to the two leaders’ tension: Lock’s main squeeze is Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), a female officer who used to be romantically linked to Morpheus.
When this triangle is revealed early on, your reaction may be a stunned: Wait, this continuation of the most innovative action/science-fiction tale of our time is using that old plot device?
Likewise, the movie also includes a scene on Zion in which Link (Harold Perrineau), a new crew member of Morpheus’ ship whom we’ve only just met, returns home to find that his wife Zee (Nona Gaye) is irritated that he’s away from home so much. Why is this mundane scene here?
The movie’s opening hour is filled with so much plot exposition and speechifying that you figure the Wachowskis have gotten lost amid their mythologies. Yes, their intellectual, existential probing is vital to the movies’ lasting power, but in “The Matrix,” the action scenes illuminated the themes. This movie’s mind-warping concepts are discussed and discussed, with the action scenes providing relief as set pieces.
The movie gets going when the action finally moves from Zion back into the Matrix. The Wachowskis continue to make great use of their “Bullet-time” technique of integrating computer technology and 360-degree’s worth of still photographs to speed up, slow down and circle around various combatants as they fly, spin, fire, kick or plummet.
The flying-from-wires martial-arts battles once again are choreographed by Hong Kong action veteran Yuen Wo Ping, who turns the human and virtual stunt people into hybrids of ballet dancers, acrobats and pinballs. In the most entertaining fight, an ever-twirling Neo wields a pole to turn the swarming Smiths into line drives and fly balls. But other hand-to-hand battles are samey and a bit slow; you can picture the actors running through their choreography instructions. The scenes certainly don’t make you catch your breath like Yuen’s more imaginative work in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or “The Iron Monkey.”
The grander-scale highway chase, with Trinity weaving a motorcycle through oncoming traffic and a sword-wielding Morpheus battling an Agent atop a speeding truck, is impressive in a car-flipping way, but it also never gets your pulse racing — perhaps because you feel like it’s nothing new.
Lifeless story
“The Matrix” felt new, combining comic books, martial arts, metaphysics and cyber-science-fiction in a way you hadn’t seen before. Now the Wachowskis are trying to extend their provocative arguments about people vs. machines and free will vs. preprogramming, but the effort has sucked the life out of their storytelling.
For such a rich visual movie, “Reloaded” tells far more than it shows; the pivotal scenes involve people explaining things to Neo. Too many plot turns resemble detours, and even the ever-amusing Smith feels like a red herring in the scheme of things.
“Reloaded” ends with a trailer for “The Matrix Revolutions,” which opens in November, but, alas, the suspense is mostly virtual.
“The Matrix Reloaded” (star)(star) Written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers; photographed by Bill Pope; edited by Zach Staenberg; production designed by Owen Paterson; music by Don Davis; produced by Joel Silver. A Warner Bros. release; opens Wednesday. Running time: 2:18. MPAA rating: R (sci-fi violence, some sexuality).
Neo Keanu Reeves
Morpheus Laurence Fishburne
Trinity Carrie-Anne Moss
Agent Smith Hugo Weaving
Niobe Jada Pinkett Smith
The Oracle Gloria Foster
Whoa! Postmodernist books are deep, dude
And you thought being a movie star was easy. The Wachowski Brothers, who directed “Reloaded,” assigned Keanu Reeves to read the dense “Simulacra and Simulation,” by French sociologist Jean Baudrillard. The book, which has a cameo in “The Matrix,” advances the idea of a copy without an original and is considered the seminal work of postmodernism.
So to help you prepare for “Reloaded,” we offer this excerpt of “Simulacra and Simulation,” translated by Sheila Faria Glaser at the University of Michigan:
“If once we were able to view the Borges fable in which the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly (the decline of the Empire witnesses the fraying of this map, little by little, and its fall into ruins, though some shreds are still discernible in the deserts — the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction testifying to a pride equal to the Empire and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, a bit as the double ends by being confused with the real through aging) — as the most beautiful allegory of simulation, this fable has not come full circle for us, and possesses nothing but the discrete charm of second-order simulacra.
“Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory — precession of simulacra — it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself.”
What others have to say . . .
Here’s a brief look at what other papers are saying about the new “Matrix” movie:
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times, 2 stars: Let’s start with all the things “The Matrix Reloaded” is: The highly anticipated sequel to one of the most influential, admired (four Academy Awards) and popular (nearly half a billion dollars in worldwide theatrical gross) of films. The first part of a simultaneously shot two-picture conclusion to the original (the second part, “The Matrix Revolutions,” comes out in November) that cost upwards of $400 million and has taken four years to come to the screen; an elaborately choreographed, rigorously stylized science-fiction epic rife with cool heroes, intriguing villains and eye-widening action set pieces that show us the money in no uncertain terms.
Saying what “The Matrix Reloaded” isn’t turns out to be a lot less complicated: It’s simply not as satisfying as the original.
Even the return of stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss as well as writer-directors and conceptual godfathers Larry and Andy Wachowski can’t change that.
While that reality might be predictable, to a certain extent unavoidable for the follow-up to a film that changed the face of what we expect from this kind of escapist entertainment, it’s still a disappointment and one that illustrates the limitations of cool as a defining and sustaining style.
Another built-in source of frustration is a kind of “Malcolm in the Middle” syndrome. While the first “Matrix” was enhanced by the classic drama of the making of the hero Neo from humble clay, and the third one will presumably have the drive of a powerful can-humanity-be-saved conclusion, middles are almost by definition less compelling.
The Wachowskis, to their credit, are clearly aware of these pitfalls and they do everything in their considerable power to mount a vigorous counterattack.
Their strongest weapon, now as always, is the power and complexity of their vision, their belief in and passion for the alternative universe they have created and nurtured to the smallest detail like twins creating their own private language.
Without the newness of the concept as a lure, “Reloaded” increasingly relies on elaborate action and new villains (Monica Bellucci as Persephone, Lambert Wilson as the Merovingian, Adrian and Neil Rayment as evil twins) to keep us interested . . . [but] the intentional coldness of “Reloaded” does not wear well. Though it suited the original “Matrix” and remains a good match for this film’s “I know because I must know,” Zen philosophizing, its limitations become more apparent as its reach is stretched over a second film.
John Anderson, Newsday, 2 1/2 stars: Those who tend to fret over the spiritual health of these United States should be comforted to know that the most popular movie of the summer is going to be a retelling of the Christ story. OK, so it’s Jesus Christ, Kung-Fu Master. But it’s Jesus just the same.
Being bulldozed by faux-tech double-talk is part of the sci-fi experience and what “Matrix” fans presumably want is action. There’s plenty. Too much, in fact. It’s almost as if the Wachowskis, who in their religious fervor have forgotten Thou Shalt Not Steal as they cherry-pick from “Star Wars,” “Mad Max,” “Lord of the Rings” and Immanuel Kant, realize that their script is long-winded and must atone. So their action sequences become ludicrously long, mirroring, in a way, the gassy dialogue.
Multimedia options: One big family tree
While “The Matrix Reloaded” is getting the lion’s share of the hype, its Wednesday opening is accompanied by a range of multimedia offerings, in keeping with the interests of brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski, writer/directors of “The Matrix” trilogy.
Leading the list is “Enter the Matrix,” reportedly the most expensive video game ever with a budget rumored at $21 million.
The Wachowskis wrote a 244-page script for the game, which advances the Matrix trilogy’s plot with an extra hour of film footage.
The game has been building interest since a February preview and reportedly has generated a mind-boggling 4 million preorders.
As a state-of-the-art example of merging movie and video game, “Enter the Matrix” is the focus of intense interest in both industries, especially since relatively few games based on movies have been big financial winners.
When the Wachowskis were promoting the release of the first film in Japan four years ago, they came up with the idea of creating an anime TV series influenced by “The Matrix” in the vein Koji Morimoto’s 1996 anthology film “Memories.” The result is “The Animatrix,” nine short films by Japan’s top animators that all deal, in some way, with the mythology of “The Matrix.”
Four of the “Animatrix” films are available for viewing on “The Matrix” Web site (www.intothematrix.com): “The Second Renaissance: Part I,” “The Program,” “A Detective Story” and “The Second Renaissance: Part II.” Fans will be able to see the rest when Warner Bros. releases them on DVD on June 3.
Here is a quick look at the nine films:
“Beyond.” Directed and written by Koji Morimoto (“Memories,” “Robot Carnival”). Using a story element from the first film, Morimoto explores the idea of deja-vu being a “bug” in the Matrix program. In a quiet town, all is not as it seems. A young girl named Yoko discovers a bug in the system when she visits an abandoned mansion in which anything can happen.
“A Detective Story.” Directed and written by Shinchiro Watanabe (“Cowboy Bebop”). In the spirit of 1950s noir films, a hard-boiled private investigator tracks down cyber-criminal Trinity (voiced by Carrie-Anne Moss) through the looking glass.
“Final Flight of the Osiris.” Directed by Andy Jones, written by Andy and Larry Wachowski. Set during the six months between “The Matrix” and “The Matrix Reloaded,” the crew of the hovercraft Osiris must get a message of vital importance to Zion before they are destroyed by an army of Sentinels.
“Kid’s Story.” Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, written by the Wachowskis. While in class, a high school student receives a personalized invitation from Neo (voiced by Keanu Reeves) to escape the Matrix. But finding an exit proves more difficult than he imagined.
“Matriculated.” Directed and written by Peter Chung (“Aeon Flux”). A small group of rebels have captured a sentient robot and proceed to program it to act as an ally for their cause. They succeed a little too well in teaching the robot to prefer their “human Matrix” to machine reality, and the robot’s appetite for the “human Matrix” may exceed the human’s ability to supply it.
“The Program.” Directed and written by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (“Ninja Scroll,” “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust”). Within the simulated world of a samurai training program, Cis, a soldier of Zion, is forced to choose between love and her comrades in the real world.
“The Second Renaissance” (Part I and Part II). Directed by Mahiro Maeda (“Blue Submarine No. 6”), written by the Wachowskis. This two-part film covers the history of how robots took control of mankind, eventually using them as energy sources. Told with documentary-style footage via the Zion archives, the films cover the last cities of mankind, the war with the machines and humanity’s ultimate downfall.
“World Record.” Directed by Takeshi Koike, written by Kawajiri. Through an incredible combination of will power and physical strength, Dan, a sprinter who holds the world record, breaks out of the Matrix and gets an all-too-brief glimpse of the real world while being chased by agents.
— From Tribune wires.
