the matrix reloaded(1)

yuer

Turns out the first "Matrix" was the One, but the second is still loads of fun.
"The Matrix Reloaded," which was filmed partly in the Bay Area, faced a tougher task than most sequels in trying to stay fresh. Filmmaking brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski's original "Matrix" had revolutionized the action genre, only to see its signature moves co-opted by everything from "Scary Movie" to "Shrek."

"The Matrix" came out four years ago -- eons in special-effects terms. While "Reloaded" contains nothing as truly innovative as its predecessor, the Wachowskis create something fresh, anyway, by cramming "Reloaded" with the stuff fans crave.

Fight scenes? They're frequent, long and intricate. Fuzzy philosophizing? Even more abundant than in the original, as the sequel further explores the existential chasm between people living within the computer confines of the Matrix and those on the outside. "Reloaded" also heats up the romance between Keanu Reeves' Neo (a.k.a. "the One") and fellow human insurgent Trinity, touchingly played by Carrie-Anne Moss. Too much turns out to be just enough to make "Reloaded" a worthy sequel and a nifty bridge to the trilogy's conclusion, coming in November.

"Reloaded" revisits the computer-generated effects on which "The Matrix" made its name -- hovering combatants, slo-mo bullet evasion -- while upping the stakes. The computer captors trying to wipe out rogue humans Neo, Trinity and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) display more resources. Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) exploded in the first movie but is back intact many times over, replicating himself by the dozens to battle Neo. Or as the delightfully dry Weaving, looking menacing but sounding like Wilford Brimley in an oatmeal ad, puts it: "Me. Me. Me."

The fight becomes an extraordinary set piece, with Reeves running sideways off the heads of Weaving doppelgangers while balancing on a pole. Agile as ever, Reeves blocks blows with lightning speed. But how much is reflex and how much CGI? This scene, like those that have Neo flying, has a tendency to look like a video game. But then the Wachowskis ground things in reality, or at least cinema, by injecting humor: When Neo finds a means of escape, Weaving's various Agent Smiths register different expressions, from embarrassment to contempt.

What most distinguishes "The Matrix" movies from CGI-heavy sci-fi like "Attack of the Clones" is their vibrant humanity. There's an admirable purity to the human rebels' cause; life would be easier had they stayed oblivious to the computer world that entrapped them, where folks aren't oppressed, per se, just unaware. Consciousness over comfort is a noble choice, and it's a concept captured beautifully in a sequence set in Zion, a dingy, bustling industrial complex that, as the last human city, faces threat of destruction by the Matrix army.

After Morpheus rallies the crowd behind Neo as the savior of humankind, bodies writhe to trance music on the dance floor -- the prevailing demographic on Zion appears to be 18-34 -- and Neo and Trinity get busy in an alcove. Their deepening love affair becomes an integral, heartfelt piece of the Matrix puzzle.

Reeves and Moss make a delectable pair, both of them sleek, beautiful and radiating goodness. There's something profound about their characters' lovemaking, something enduring and life-affirming in seeing their scars from painful rebirth into the real world. The symbolism is heavy but also sexy.

When characters aren't fighting or commingling, they're talking nonstop. Mindful that its impenetrability was part of the first "Matrix's" allure, the Wachowskis pile on twists and let characters expound on nagging topics like man versus machine and ideas of fate and choice. "What happened happened because it couldn't have happened any other way," says Morpheus, captain of conundrums.

Not to worry, Internet "Matrix" heads; clarity is never achieved. Going by the first two installments, it takes a film and a half to understand one "Matrix," which means we'll figure out "Reloaded" at the conclusion of the third installment, "The Matrix Revolutions."

The diverse, egalitarian spirit evident in Zion extends to the movie as well. Reeves might be the biggest name and ostensible star of the film, but he's absent from the action for stretches. This allows Moss to shine, whether delivering kicks over her shoulder or locked in a gunfight while plummeting from a high-rise. She's the finest female action hero since Sigourney Weaver in "Alien" -- flinty one moment, nurturing the next and slyly possessive when Italian bombshell Monica Bellucci's character flirts with Neo.

Fishburne gets less screen time than in the first "Matrix," but an extended freeway chase scene (filmed in Alameda and Oakland) lets him show a few moves. He looks rock solid atop a truck that appears to be going 70 mph, the San Francisco skyline looming in the background. At least it looks like the San Francisco skyline until you realize that CGI has turned it into Any City, USA.

Jada Pinkett Smith's pixieish spaceship captain gets little to do here, but you get the feeling she's being primed for big doings in the finale. Ultimately, "The Matrix Reloaded" suffers from "Two Towers" disease: As a middle installment, it lacks a real beginning or end. But unlike "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Matrix" has no literary precursor, thereby promising a surprise with every new episode. Judging by this accomplished sequel, there will be plenty more to like come November. . This film contains violence, nudity, sexual themes.

yuer

Four years ago, "The Matrix" blasted out of nowhere and gave us the best sci-fi fantasy ride of the '90s. It was everything George Lucas' "The Phantom Menace" wasn't: smart, sexy, provocative, and fused to a mythology as mesmerizing as its special effects were astounding.

Blending zen mysticism, apocalyptic storytelling and eye-popping martial arts action, the movie became an instant pop culture phenomenon. Its "bullet time" effects and stuttering use of slo-mo in the middle of slam-bang fight scenes became Hollywood's most mimicked stylistic flourishes -- co-opted in everything from commercials to a spoof in "Scary Movie 2." It opened Western eyes to the amazing, balletic fight scenes of Hong Kong flicks, making way for the massive success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

And "The Matrix" was cool. Way cool. Cooler than anybody thought a movie starring Keanu Reeves could ever be.

The first of two sequels, "The Matrix Reloaded" has to compete against its own legacy while continuing the story, which wraps up with "The Matrix Revolutions," opening Nov. 5. Like last year's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," it stampedes toward its conclusion with some of the same problems you might expect from the middle film of a trilogy.

The world is still ruled by artificial intelligence. Machines keep most of humanity hardwired in cocoons, dreaming a dream of reality that is really the computer program known as the Matrix. Now established as The One destined to release mankind from enslavement, Neo (Reeves) is seen by many of the free humans living in the secret underground city of Zion as their savior. Others doubt his mentor Morpheus' (Laurence Fishburne) unwavering belief that the prophecies about Neo are true.

When machines discover and start digging through the earth's crust toward Zion, it's up to Neo, his lover Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus to plug in and find a way into the mainframe computer that runs the Matrix. (Actors Harold Perrineau Jr., Harry J. Lennix and Jada Pinkett-Smith are new team players, but the focus remains on the original trio.)

That's as much plot summary as I'll give, so hard-core "Matrix" fans can relax.

Written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, "Reloaded" can't recapture the shivery, mind-opening mysteries of the first movie, which lured us into the same rabbit hole Neo followed as he learned the true nature of the Matrix and "reality." (Like "The Usual Suspects" or "Memento," the movie trusted we were smart enough to "get" it.) And "Reloaded" can't thrill us with the then-groundbreaking effects that so many other directors plagiarized after 1999. So what the Wachowskis do is up the ante, in ways that are both good and bad.

The good includes some remarkable action scenes. Neo battles a hundred duplicates of the now-free-range Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), and there's a high-octane, dizzying highway chase scene involving cars, trailer trucks and motorbikes. Trust me, when you leave "Reloaded," you'll probably break the speed limit driving home.

The bad? Well, there's too much of those patented slo-mo shots. And the short, haiku-like zen koans of the first film here become murky, long lectures about fate, choice, cause and effect. The movie might be a taut two hours if you could take out the pauses in Fishburne's speeches.

While the philosophy and the action in "The Matrix" felt integrated, in "Reloaded" you get a lot of portentous talk, then some great action, then some more talk. It dawdles, then it rushes. When the new character Persphone (the astoundingly pneumatic Monica Belluci) calls her long-winded paramour a "pompous [expletive]," you'll agree. But you might spread the blame to the script, which at times makes you feel something you never expected: boredom. You may be reminded of all the speechifying about midichlorians in "hantom Menace."

Also bad, or at least not so great? Neo flies. Don't get me wrong, flying is cool. "He's doin' his Superman thing," one character says when Neo is busy parting the clouds. But this results, twice, in a variant of a Clark-and-Lois rescue that seems a little convenient for a movie franchise that's often so smart.

In its final half hour, "Reloaded" lurches forward in confusing ways. You wish that some of the philosophical talks had been edited, and that the action scenes were more clearly laid out. I'll probably see the film again -- not just because I want to, because some of the confused storytelling in the last act makes me need to.

But you know what? "The Matrix Reloaded" is still a more thrilling movie than we've come to expect at the multiplex. Its faults are a refreshing anomaly in a Hollywood system that doesn't want to challenge anything above the lowest common denominator. If, in movie terms, "The Matrix" and its dazzling dark glamour represented The One, "Reloaded" ranks as an honorable Number Two . . . and whets the appetite for the trilogy's finale.

yuer

Commander Lock: "Not everyone believes what you believe."

Morpheus: "My beliefs do not require that they do."

Characters are always talking like this in "The Matrix Reloaded," which plays like a collaboration involving a geek, a comic book and the smartest kid in Philosophy 101. Morpheus in particular unreels extended speeches that remind me of Laurence Olivier's remarks when he won his honorary Oscar--the speech that had Jon Voight going "God!" on TV, but in print turned out to be quasi-Shakespearean doublespeak. The speeches provide not meaning, but the effect of meaning: It sure sounds like those guys are saying some profound things.

That will not prevent fanboys from analyzing the philosophy of "The Matrix Reloaded" in endless Web postings. Part of the fun is becoming an expert in the deep meaning of shallow pop mythology; there is something refreshingly ironic about becoming an authority on the transient extrusions of mass culture, and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) now joins Obi-Wan Kenobi as the Plato of our age.

I say this not in disapproval, but in amusement. "The Matrix" (1999), written and directed by the brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski, inspired so much inflamed pseudo-philosophy that it's all "The Matrix Reloaded" can do to stay ahead of its followers. It is an immensely skillful sci-fi adventure, combining the usual elements: heroes and villains, special effects and stunts, chases and explosions, romance and oratory. It develops its world with more detail than the first movie was able to afford, gives us our first glimpse of the underground human city of Zion, burrows closer to the heart of the secret of the Matrix, and promotes its hero, Neo, from confused draftee to a Christ figure in training.

As we learned in "The Matrix," the Machines need human bodies, millions and millions of them, for their ability to generate electricity. In an astonishing sequence, we saw countless bodies locked in pods around central cores that extended out of sight above and below. The Matrix is the virtual reality that provides the minds of these sleepers with the illusion that they are active and productive. Questions arise, such as, is there no more efficient way to generate power? And why give the humans dreams when they would generate just as much energy if comatose? And why create such a complex virtual world for each and every one of them, when they could all be given the same illusion and be none the wiser? Why is each dreamer himself or herself, occupying the same body in virtual reality as the one asleep in the pod?

But never mind. We are grateful that 250,000 humans have escaped from the grid of the Matrix, and gathered to build Zion, which is "near the Earth's core--where there is more heat." As the movie opens, we are alarmed to learn that the Machines are drilling toward Zion so quickly that they will arrive in 36 hours. We may also wonder if Zion and its free citizens really exist, or if the humans only think so, but that leads to a logical loop ending in madness.

Neo (Keanu Reeves) has been required to fly, to master martial arts, and to learn that his faith and belief can make things happen. His fights all take place within virtual reality spaces, while he reclines in a chair and is linked to the cyberworld, but he can really be killed, because if the mind thinks it is dead, "the body is controlled by the mind." All of the fight sequences, therefore, are logically contests not between physical bodies, but between video game-players, and the Neo in the big fight scenes is actually his avatar.

The visionary Morpheus, inspired by the prophecies of the Oracle, instructed Neo--who gained the confidence to leap great distances, to fly and in "Reloaded" destroys dozens of clones of Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in martial combat. That fight scene is made with the wonders of digital effects and the choreography of the Hong Kong action director Yuen Wo Ping, who also did the fights in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." It provides one of the three great set pieces in the movie.

The second comes when Morpheus returns to Zion and addresses the assembled multitude--an audience that looks like a mosh pit crossed with the underground slaves in "Metropolis." After his speech, the citizens dance in a percussion-driven frenzy, which is intercut with Neo and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) having sex. I think their real bodies are having the sex, although you can never be sure.

The third sensational sequence is a chase involving cars, motorcycles and trailer trucks, with gloriously choreographed moves including leaps into the air as a truck continues to move underneath. That this scene logically takes place in cyberspace does not diminish its thrilling 14-minute fun ride, although we might wonder--when deadly enemies meet in one of these virtual spaces, who programmed it? (I am sure I will get untold thousands of e-mails explaining it all to me.)

I became aware, during the film, that a majority of the major characters were played by African Americans. Neo and Trinity are white, and so is Agent Smith, but consider Morpheus; his superior Commander Lock (Harry Lennix); the beautiful and deadly Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), who once loved Morpheus and now is with Lock, although she explains enigmatically that some things never change; the programmer Link (Harold Perrineau); Link's wife, Zee (Nona Gaye), who has the obligatory scene where she complains he's away from home too much, and the Oracle (the late Gloria Foster, very portentous). From what we can see of the extras, the population of Zion is largely black.

It has become commonplace for science fiction epics to feature one or two African-American stars, but we've come a long way since Billy Dee Williams in "Return of the Jedi." The Wachowski brothers use so many African Americans, I suspect, not for their box-office appeal, because the Matrix is the star of the movie, and not because they are good actors (which they are), but because to the white teenagers who are the primary audience for this movie, African-Americans embody a cool, a cachet, an authenticy. Morpheus is the power center of the movie, and Neo's role is essentially to study under him and absorb his mojo.

The film ends with "To Be Concluded," a reminder that the third film in the trilogy arrives in November. Toward the end, there are scenes involving characters who seem pregnant with possibilities for Part 3. One is the Architect (Helmut Bakaltis), who says he designed the Matrix and revises everything Neo thinks he knows about it. Is the Architect a human, or an avatar of the Machines? The thing is, you can never know for sure. He seems to hint that when you strip away one level of false virtual reality, you find another level beneath. Maybe everything so far is several levels up?

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time tells the story of a cosmologist whose speech is interrupted by a little old lady who informs him that the universe rests on the back of a turtle. "Ah, yes, madame," the scientist replies, "but what does the turtle rest on?" The old lady shoots back: "You can't trick me, young man. It's nothing but turtles, turtles, turtles, all the way down."

awei

i have seen it, hiahia~
u have to see it in a theatre, with great video effect....

yuer

i have seen it twice.

tonggang

i have no patient to see it.