Why The First Matrix Is Still Better Than Reloaded

Here's something i got from metaquotes:

If they had speech bubbles over the heads of all the characters in the movie, Neo's would say, unvaryingly, "...". Maybe punctuated with an occasional "BOOBIES!". -- fricknfrack

The Matrix: Reloaded is a great big, dumb movie in the history of big, dumb movies. I know this because i was gripping my seat as i watched the intense freeway chase between Trinity, Morpheus and the Twins. I was transfixed, enraptured by the high-speed action taking place before my eyes.

And then the screen abruptly went blank. The film reel stopped, and the house lights came on. I felt dazed, like a someone rudely awakened from a hyperreal dream.

I had literally been unplugged from The Matrix.

That's the power of the movie, entrapping you in its own dream world of relentless superhuman action, with some of the most stylish and breathtaking scenes ever filmed -- Trinity's freefall shoot-out, the "big brawl," the freeway chase. I was thrilled, and i thoroughly enjoyed myself. Still, it wasn't enough. This was one hell of a big, dumb movie... but when you think about how smart the first one was, you can't help but be a tad disappointed.

The original The Matrix was brilliant in its tapping of two core fantasies of the human psyche. The first part of the movie is the ultimate paranoid nightmare, drawn from the fear that (a) reality isn't what we think it is, and (b) there's a malevolent conspiracy to keep everyone under control. The second part plunges into an even more powerful fantasy: the narcissistic dream that "I am special, and the rules don't apply to me, even if they do to everyone else." That's not even going into the film's overt allusions to the bible and Greek mythology.

Reloaded, however, explores the overused fantasy of "Love conquers all" -- and not in any original way, either. The movie is also about the idea of "choice," and this is hammered into our head so constantly we just want to put up our hands and say, "We get it, okay? It's all about choice! Now get on with it!" We came to see a movie, not a lecture in philosophy.

The movie's thrill ride is also lessened because we, the audience, have become jaded. I remember the first time i watched The Matrix, how i was awestruck at watching Trinity's 360-rotated flying kick, and Neo experiencing "bullet time." Those were cool effects, and revolutionary for their time. Since then they've been copied in everything from Charlie's Angels to Shrek. Reloaded gives us some fantastic action sequences, but nothing as revolutionary as bullet time. The "big brawl" is fun but too gimmicky, too videogame-ish. Watching all of the effects sequences, you get the distinct feeling that the Wachowskis had a strong need to top themselves. Well, they didn't, because they made the mistake of focusing on cool effects instead of telling us a better story. Hasn't Star Wars taught them anything?

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't watched The Matrix: Reloaded, you are advised not to read beyond this point.

And the acting in Reloaded is quite laughable. Laurence Fishburne especially is a big disappointment. In The Matrix, his Morpheus was compelling and full of intrigue. In Reloaded, he comes off like a crazed religious fanatic, and i for one cannot understand why the council has so much respect for such a nutcase. About the only person in the movie who can act is Gloria Foster, the Oracle. Her scene arrives like a breath of fresh air, a sublime moment in the midst of such mediocre performances. And, well, i guess The Merovingian wasn't half bad, either.

Speaking of The Merovingian, here is a monumentally wasted character. Here we have a brilliant and fascinating villain, who has the potential to be the Lex Luthor to Neo's Superman. He has the power to do magnificently evil deeds, say, manipulating Trinity's emotions and moving her to kill Neo. Do we see anything like that? No, he just looses his goons upon Neo. The Merovingian could have been so much more.

Instead, we get Agent Smith, Agent Smith, Agent Smith. Where he was so deliciously menacing in the first film, here he's just boring. Okay, so he can multiply, big deal. Can he do long division? Whatever. We all know he can't beat Neo. What is he still doing in the Matrix anyway? In the first movie, he said he hated the place, couldn't wait to get out of there... now he's back? Even the Batman flicks knew enough to give us new villains with every new movie. Well, The Matrix is basically a movie about superheroes. That implies a need for supervillains. We do get the Twins, who are cool... but not much else. What Neo and his gang requires are worthy opponents.

It would have been a way cooler film if Neo had fulfilled the promise he made in the first film, and become a digital Christ, performing miracles as he traveled throughout the Matrix, getting more and more humans to wake up, and always keeping one step ahead of the machines who want to shut him down. In fact, Neo could, with a touch, turn an Agent into a bouquet of flowers, even cast mountains into the sea. That's how powerful he really is... his mojo is bettah than anybody's kung-fu. Yeah, but he wants to play kung-fu anyway. Wachowski brothers, the kung-fu was cool in The Matrix way back then, but nowadays every action movie has kung-fu in it. If you had to have kung-fu, maybe it should've been between martial artists flying through the sky. In other words, show us something we haven't seen before. That's what we've come to expect from The Matrix.

It's not that i don't like Reloaded. Like i said, it's great for a big, dumb movie. But when you compare it to The Matrix... that film was a landmark, a science fiction classic. This one, it's just another bump on the road.