May 15, 2003 | In the last exciting episode of The Matrix, future-worldly computer hacker Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) discovered his true calling as savior of humankind. Renaming himself Neo, our hero pledged to plug into the artificial reality controlled by The Powers That Be, to fight the good fight alongside Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), a leather-clad beauty with cheekbones to die for, and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a gravely grandiloquent rebel leader who pontificates in fortune-cookie aphorisms.
The chief impediment to their righteous crusade: Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), an icy-cold Mr. Bad Vibes who speaks in the condescending cadences of a burnt-out teacher addressing slow-learners and, much worse, insists on being a wet blanket by continually referring to the super-heroic Neo as “Mr. Anderson.” Think of him as the humorless high school principal who prevents geeks from wearing Star Trek attire to the senior prom. He’s no fun at all, but he has – temporarily, at least – all the power.
There’s a lot more of Agent Smith in The Matrix Reloaded, the prodigiously hyped sequel that appears to have been downloaded this week by every megaplex in the known universe. In fact, there’s a lot more of almost everything that made the first Matrix, released back in 1999, such a memorable sensory overload. Trouble is, unlike Neo and his fellow rebels, the Matrix franchise has lost the element of surprise. Throughout Matrix Reloaded, there’s a faint but distractingly pungent whiff of “been there, done that.” And there’s way too much time devoted to portentous dialogue, impenetrable complexities and facile philosophizing that, taken together, are meant to inflate the Matrix trilogy (a second sequel, The Matrix Revolutions, is due later this year) into some kind of cross-culturally eclectic, pseudo-profound epic myth.
Gaze beyond the intellectual posturing, and you can discern the hazy outlines of a sci-fi plot that borrows heavily from a gamut of pop-culture sources: Alien, Brazil, The Terminator, Alice in Wonderland and John Woo’s high-octane Hong Kong shoot-’em-ups. Siblings Larry and Andy Wachowski, co-creators of this filmic universe, have cobbled together a free-form narrative that has something to do with the enslavement of mankind by sentient machines, and something else to do with masses of human chattel bred to serve as Energizer batteries. (It’s a narrative, by the way, that can be understood – just barely – only if you’ve already seen the first Matrix.)
But all of that merely is an excuse for the Wachowskis to find new ways to make people look cool as they shoot guns and dodge bullets, throw punches and execute kicks, race cars and smash through walls, preferably in slow-motion while they’re garbed in black leather. If Reloaded is “about” anything, it’s about the evolution of Keanu Reeves into a sub-zero, Hong Kong-style action-movie icon – sort of a computer-generated Chow Yun-Fat – with spiffy sunglasses, a black-on-black, vaguely clerical wardrobe, and more weapons than an Afghan warlord.
Much like the first Matrix, Reloaded is a discordant but dazzling dreamscape that is best appreciated as the most humongous video arcade ever designed for thrill-seekers with minimal attention spans. If you try to make sense of its furiously muddled plot – which incorporates, among many other things, alternative realities, artificial intelligence, wire-work acrobatics and kick-butt kung fu – you will find yourself confused, if not enraged, by the movie’s contradictions and incoherence.
Instead of thinking in terms of traditional narrative, you would do better to interpret Reloaded as a step-by-step progression through some new Nintendo 64 game. That impression is enhanced, it should be noted, by the frequent tracking shots of Neo and friends as they dash down hallways, seeking the door to their next challenge. Accompanying them, you reach one level, then the next, and a few more after that, and you’re finished. Game over. The sensations are transient, but undeniably exhilarating.
