My Review of The Matrix Reloaded

Rating Scale:

12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made

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Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another movie review for today. This afternoon, I will be reviewing the second installment of the Matrix franchise entitled: “The Matrix Reloaded”. I gotta say that this was a really good experience rewatching this for the first time in years. I remember seeing this movie with my parents when I was a kid, and the only scene I remembered was the part where Neo stops the bullets with the force and they all drop to the floor. I could’ve sworn he said a sassy one-liner after that, but I guess not. Anyway, here is what I think of the second movie of the series:

This takes place six months after the first film. The Matrix is in greater danger as the advanced machines plan to move in and attack Zion. As Morpheus and the others prepare for war, Neo has a disturbing vision of losing his now romantic partner Trinity to an unfortunate fate. Will he save her from certain death or save the Matrix from destruction?

While the story was slightly less intriguing than the first one, I still enjoyed the premise, the conflict, and the way they developed the continuing storyline. This is basically a two-parter since this movie and the next installment are closely connected and were released in the same year (2003)—just six months apart.

Neo has now grown to be even stronger than ever before. But with his new powers, there also came his new weaknesses. His growing love for Trinity became the source of his inner conflict as the fate of the Matrix rested on his shoulders. It made him more interesting as the protagonist because despite the fact that he’s “the One”, he’s still subject to making mistakes that may or may not reap dire consequences that will affect not only him but also everyone in Zion—especially Trinity.

Agent Smith has grown more relentless ever since his initial defeat by Neo. I like the way he even made clones of himself as a rogue program. The more he antagonized and fought Neo, the more he became less stoic and more…human in a way. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like he started to become more emotionally obsessed with Neo and became less of his normal self. In my opinion, it’s a great way of giving him depth as a villain instead of making him one-dimensional. Great writing!

The fight scenes are epic, the choreography is flawless, the soundtrack is pretty good, and the acting is great.

The only other nitpicks I have are the following: featuring other antagonists who are more annoying and less interesting, spending a little too much time on info-dumping, and the hit-and-miss visual effects. And yes, I am mostly referring to the Merovingian—the other rogue program. He was really dull as an antagonist and didn’t really need to be in this movie, in my opinion. And his wife wasn’t any better either. Was it really necessary to have her kiss Neo right in front of Trinity, seeing how pissed she was? Twice in a row? Come on, lol, what the hell was that??

I get that she wanted to do that in exchange to free the Keymaker, but there could have been other ways to do it. That also didn’t need to be in the movie. Again, this is just my opinion. But overall, I enjoyed this movie, its storyline, and the way it ended with a cliffhanger. Its solid conclusion will be met in the following movie. But for this, it gets a 9/10.

Peace out.