The Matrix Reloaded

What’s the Story?

No refreshers to bring us back into the world of the original Matrix -- this second installment literally starts with a bang as a woman in black breaks into some sort of secured facility and fights off the guards. We are back in the world where the machines use humans for fuel, lulling the humans into thinking that they are living mundane lives so that they will not realize that they are merely an energy source. Only a few humans know the truth, and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) believe that one of them, Neo (Keanu Reeves) is "the one" who will defeat the machines. The scenes shift back and forth between Zion, the city where the humans who resist the machines live and the illusory "city" maintained by the computers called The Matrix.

Is It Any Good?

And the answer is -- Yes! This is the movie the fans of the original Matrix were hoping it would be, and it's the bridge between the chapter that sets up the conflict and the chapter that resolves it. This movie has electrifying fight scenes, an audaciously dystopic vision, zillions of explosions and car crashes, a steamy love scene, and visual effects that raise the bar from the first one as much as the first one raised it from everything that had gone before.

The action sequences will knock your socks off. Episode One's Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) has learned how to multiply, and Neo has to fight a hundred Smiths, each with its own version of Weaving's magnificently cocked eyebrow. Real-life twins (and black belt karate instructors) Adrien and Neil Rayment play dredlocked albinos who can turn themselves into ghost-like wraiths out to destroy our heroes. And then there is a heart-stopping 14-minute chase and crash scene on a freeway. Still, just as with the first one, the most powerful scene doesn't have fancy special effects or explosions. It's the conversation between Neo and the Oracle, played with endless warmth, wit, and spirit by the late Gloria Foster. The movie also taps into epic questions of destiny, causality, identity, and choice.