Reloaded: I've Enjoyed BSODs More
Sam's post mirrors my disappointment with Reloaded. I saw it this afternoon and to say I was profoundly disappointed is an understatement. Which is really saying something since I was expecting a fair amount of disappointment based upon early returns. I won't even refrain from spoilers galore--trust me the only spoiler was actually going to the theater and having my worst fears confirmed.
It's such a botched effort and it completely speaks to the continuing decline of actual storytelling in big movies today. Let me say, straight away, I loved the original and Reloaded's visual effects were awesome. I enjoyed the fight scenes even if they felt a bit gratuitous after the third or fourth repetition. The freeway chase is everything the Brothers hoped it would be, it ranks right up there with Bullitt, French Connection and Ronin for me. So yes, it has the requisite pop and flash for a summer blockbuster, it ups the ante like we expect a franchise sequel to do.
Yet when all is said and done, there is nothing else there, there is no spoon, there's also no meaningful substance bleeding through around the visual pyrotechnics. What's maddening is that the elements were all there, I really feel that somewhere in Reloaded there actually is a good movie, a worthy continuance, struggling to get out. But it can't, it's betrayed at every turn by the Wachowskis. In the final analysis there are about 4 meaningful scenes, some great action and about two hours of melodramatic obfuscation and loitering that did nothing but make me aware that I was being cheated out of a good story right before my eyes.
You could start Reloaded with Neo's visit with the Oracle, which happens a good hour plus into the flick. Everything before that (other than Smith implanting himself in a human, which is most likely an essential plant for Revolutions) is useless drivel and actually fairly B-grade fare. Fast forward to the encounter with Merovingian for the key maker, revel in the freeway chase, take the keymaker to The Source and meet The Architect. Roll credits. The rest of the movie is useless and can be perfunctorily discarded.
When you boil it down to these remaining elements, it starts to resemble or at least evoke the original. But with all the other crap shoehorned around it, the good parts get lost in all the noise and are effectively marginalized. The encounter with The Architect is a dense and nearly apologetic attempt to explain why the viewer was made to wait nearly two and half hours for some sense of purpose. Moreover, after The Architect reveals that the prophecy of The One is but another failsafe and that the systemic rebooting of The Matrix and Zion is but part of the machines' hammerlock on the humans' reality, all I end up feeling is that we could have jump cut from the final scene of the first installment to this point in about 15 minutes flat with everyone's dignity intact.
Hopefully the reality is that this was a two-volume epic stretched into three out of Rings-related hubris/envy and that Revolutions will redeem the Brothers Wachowski. I really hate movies that squander their potential more than movies that had none to begin with--and for that, this movie really embodies what I hate blockbuster movies in this day and age. I'd rather go see something simple and moving like Spellbound ten times in a row, who needs incredible fiction if it's only layered atop completely hollow drama. Ugh.