CAST: Keanu Reeves (Thomas Anderson/Neo), Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus), Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity), Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith), Matt McColm (Agent Thompson), Jada Pinkett Smith (Niobe), Monica Bellucci (Persephone), Lambert Wilson (Merovingian), Harry J. Lennix (Link), Clayton Watson (The Kid), Daniel Bernhardt (Agent Johnson), Nona M. Gaye (Zee). Randall Duk Kim (The Keymaker), Nathaniel Lees (Mifuno), Sing Ngai (Seraph), Adrian Rayment (Twin One), Neil Rayment (Twin Two)
SCR: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
DIR: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
MPAA: R, for sci-fi violence and some sexuality
RUNNING TIME: 138 minutes
OFFICIAL SITE: http://www.the-matrix.com/

THE MATRIX RELOADED is a solid follow-up to the surprise 1999 hit best known for kicking George Lucas' ass. Maybe it was just bad bullet-timing.

Although THE MATRIX made only a third of THE PHANTOM MENACE's domestic gross, the latter was a film that most felt - and I'm being quite generous here - did not meet the expectations of a pent-up sixteen year wait. Yoda was right. What's in there is what you take with you and too many people forgot the STAR WARS prequel was just a movie and not a religion.

I quote the Jedi Master to make a point. Between 1999, when THE MATRIX flew under the radar to become a cultural phenomenon, and 2003, the year of the twin MATRIX sequels, RELOADED and REVOLUTIONS, a similar anticipation and fervor began to simmer. And the fastest way to have your expectations dashed is to raise the bar so high in your mind, there's no way a mere movie could possibly come close.

Lower your expectations.

RELOADED gets many things right in its 138 minute running time, but it's a mixed bag. It moves with a kinetic energy, captures the original's mood and features the kind of action scenes that guarantee it prime rotation in the Circuit City home theater room. There's a car chase that's among the best ever shot, dramatic plunging from buildings, start/stop time shifts, hyperactive kung fu and enough techno-babble to make the geeks breathe heavier (as if robo-babe Carrie Anne Moss wasn't enough reason).

Don't get me wrong. I'm a card-carrying geek myself, but the endless teasing of the original just got old. And because nobody worth their pocket protector wants be the first to say it, I will. THE MATRIX was pretty damned pretentious too. Thank the maker that RELOADED actually has some plot, but no more than your typical episode of STAR TREK.

A recap: In our last episode, thanks to the all-believing Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne), Neo (Keanu Reeves) discovered he was The One, according to the prophecy that stated he would bring balance to the Force, er, save humanity as we know it. And that this world as we know it is actually a computer program and we're all just plugged into it, feeding it juice. And that Neo can fly. But more about that later.

We open once again with Trinity (Moss) kicking ass, but taking a bullet in the middle of an amazing fall. It's revealed to be a dream, but since Neo (Keanu Reeves) now has "The Sight," we can assume that the writing-directing Brothers Wachowski will get to run that cool sequence again later.

RELOADED makes its first right move by grounding itself with an extended sequence in the city of Zion, which is like Thunderdome in a Cecil B. DeMille movie. Morpheus gives a rousing "we shall overcome" speech to the scores of followers in reference to an imminent attack by those tentacle ships seen in the first film. A tribal celebration ensues, Neo and Trinity sneak off for some recreational sex and Anthony Zerbe shows up to wonder what it all means. Even though all of this seems out of place in a MATRIX movie, the sequence establishes these characters as real people, which will help later on.

We once again meet The Oracle (the late Gloria Stuart) and she tells Neo he needs to find the Keymaker, who, as it turns out, literally has a key for every occasion. Characters in these movies have names like The Oracle, The Keymaker, The Architect. Hey, why waste time on names when you can just cut to the chase? There's also the twins, who can “ghost out,” making them very hard to shoot.

Our heroes must visit the libidinous French opportunist Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) who has taken The Keymaster as a prisoner. He lectures them on one of the movies' themes - cause and effect - and reveals that he likes to swear in French. "It's like wiping your ass with silk."

Italian scorcher Monica Belucci plays his jealous and vengeful wife Persephone, who doesn't take too kindly to her husband's overt flirtations with other women. So she does what any wronged woman would do: she takes the marauders to where her husband has the prisoner stowed away and lets him go. Belucci has also finally confirmed a theory of mind: If you need a hotter-than-the-sun sci-fi babe, look no farther in the galaxy than Italy. Belucci comes very close to challenging Ornella Muti's sexed-up Princess Aura from the trashy 1980's FLASH GORDON remake as the Hottest Creature In The Universe.

Neo flies in this film. Not a lot, but just enough to make me hope and pray that Warner Bros. never makes that blasted Superman movie. His few scenes of airborne activity are flat-out amazing and offer some of the movie's best jolts. He also stops a handful of bullets with his bare hands, which begs the question: if he can stop bullets in mid air, why does he even have to bother with hand to hand combat, especially with a hundred copies of Agent Smith? Couldn't he just wave his hand and swat them away like, say, one of the X-Men?

A seventeen minute freeway chase (filmed on a stretch of isolated highway in Alameda) is thrilling and exhausting, but some of the martial arts sequences just got boring after a while, lacking the style and pizzazz of the first film.

There's a major "Luke, I am your father" type of revelation close to the end, and I wouldn't dream of spoiling it for you. However, I will point out that while RELOADED is longer on answers then its predecessor was, there's still an infuriating amount of filler in the script.

"What does it mean?"
"It means what you think it means."
Yeah, stuff like that, over and over.

The movie ends abruptly with a "To Be Concluded" graphic and cliffhanger, but it's not like people aren't going to want to see how it ends. People who leave as soon as the credits roll (and you know who you are) get what they deserve. At the very end, there's a preview for THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS.

RELOADED won't disappoint if you venture forth simply expecting a slightly smarter version of a summer blockbuster, but with amazing special effects and action sequences. To the geeks who have deconstructed every frame of the original and used it to throw at George Lucas, I offer only this:

What's in there is what you take with you.

--reviewed by DENNIS WILLIS