There are moments, as a critic, when I ask myself, "What's the point?" -- when I realize that I trade in opinion and that I am, in essence, a salesman of thought. And so I wonder: "Who am I, above any other, that my opinion matters?"
For most, there are films that exist as cinematic absolutes, uniting us all in our collective agreement to either love or loathe. And others, like The Matrix Reloaded, are the lines in the sand that divide us. Dare I say it - I hated the first film, and dare I again - I loved the second. Argue as you will. There's time.The first Matrix was a high-impact collision of high-concept clichés; very Greek and all so biblical, stoner's philosophy 101, "What if what's real isn't really real?" It was a hodge-podge mixture of scattered ideas. Scrap metal for the kung-fu soul. Land-fill-osophy. But for whatever reason it dug, like so many Sentinels, down into the Zion of our popular zeitgeist, and was somehow warmly embraced.So why, then, do I love the sequel? Because, having sown the seeds of simplicity, the film is free to blossom, out and out into higher, more intelligent, concepts, with greater, more spectacular, action.
In the first Matrix, there was never any doubt that Neo was The One and, subsequently, no fear beneath his process of discovery. We knew where it all began and where, approximately, it would end. Like a well-painted boxcar on diminishing rails.Fortunately, Matrix Reloaded ups the ante. Here Neo is free to unleash his powers in a series of magnificent action sequences, unparalleled in their visual intensity - from the Agent Smith cage match to the explosive freeway opus. And while we are relatively confident in Neo's victory, our suspense lies with the others, from the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar to Zion itself. The eye-candy promised by the end of the first film finally arrives and pays off in no short supply.Thankfully, the twists are abundant, and while the action, for all its delight, might be somewhat predictable, the narrative arc is surprisingly clever. There are revelations here that challenge our perception of the Matrix, posing difficult moral questions and forcing the audience to think beyond novelty. There is an invisible game being played, and when the time arrives for its pieces to be shown, the Matrix itself is revealed as a character.
The film feeds off of these revelations, generating a genuine layer of intellectual suspense.The direction is sleek, the performances commanding. The pacing is tempered and never sacrifices story for action or action for story. It demands both patience and thought, but rewards in abundance.
Other critics have attacked Reloaded for not delivering on its vast narrative potential, but for such a malleable world, it's easy for the audience to be selfish with its demands. A universe of code is a cosmos of chance. The road of a million forks. But for the path down which it travels, Matrix Reloaded constitutes a vast improvement upon the original, and one for which the audience can rejoice.
|
Top Stories
29 Comments
