It seems that there are still some stragglers around that are completely ignorant to this universal truth, that The Matrix Reloaded sucked donkey balls. In the anals of history, sacred texts will describe the works of Michelangelo, Plato and Beethoven. They will describe the rise of western civilization and how filmmaking changed the planet. They will also note the dismal and monumental failure of Unloaded.

The first film was wonderous. It was fantastic. It had great philosophy, thinking outside the box, interesting characters and just a fantastic concept. A concept derivative of William Gibson, George Lucas and James Cameron to be sure, but no less fascinating.

.......then we got this....this....TURD of a sequel. I mean it was like a flaming bag of dogshit on all our doorsteps. It systematically destroyed everything that made the first film so good. And yet there are still those that eat that flaming dogshit in heaping spoonfuls and delight in their belief that they are equal or (dear God) SUPERIOR to the original.

But I digress. Let's deal with the facts. What exactly was it that made the world gag back vomit upon witnessing this cinematic sin?

1) It opens pretty good with Trinity kicking some ass. Now this might feel a little deja vu because the first film started the same way. But see that's because you are failing to notice NUANCE. See in the original film, Trinity dove INTO a window, spun around and prepared to fire double-handed through her spread-eagle legs. In Reloaded, she dives OUT of a window before turning around to fire double-handed through her legs. See? (taps temple) NUANCE. Then we witness about 5 minutes of bullet time. Never before did I imagined this could be so boring.

2) So now Neo wakes up in his potato sack. What exactly is his role on that ship anyway? He looks like a deck-swabber. One of his first lines is "I wish I knew what to do". (scratches head) Gee, that's funny. He seemed to know exactly what to do at the end of the last film. Yes, I'm sure he gave a speech about waking people up and showing them a world without the machines. Wasn't he about to start kicking ass? I mean he can inhabit agents and blow them apart. He can stop bullets, he can FLY for fucks sake. He can rewrite the matrix as he sees fit, yet he has no clue what to do?

3) So they go back to Zion and right away the Jar Jar Binks of the series shows up. "Hiya Neo. What's up Neo? Can I wash your dick Neo?" We have no idea who this kid is. We have no idea what he's talking about or what purpose he has for the rest of the film. All we know is, WE HATE HIM!

4) So now it is established that Neo and Trinity want to have sex. Apparently this is forbidden on the ship? They never explain why they are all of a sudden rubbing on each other like cats in heat. But in the meantime, we are treated to a painfully obvious eye-rolling "Jesus and the lepers" scene which itself is just thrown away.

5) So now we follow Link into his room. At about this time you start wondering what happened to Tank. His girlfriend seems to elude to the idea that possibly Tank and Dozer were her brothers. Is Tank dead? How'd that happen?

6) It's time for Morpheus' "Lothar of the Hill People" speech. Here's where he gets the idea that the best way to defeat the machines that are tunneling towards them is to make it as easy as possible for them to find them. Yep, Throw a rave and make a lot of noise. One wonders what would have happened if this was the idea Princess Leia had on Hoth. "Sure the Empire is on the way to destroy us, but come on SHAKE WHAT YOUR MOMMA GAVE YA!"

7) So now we see Neo screwing Trinity in a truly awful and bizarre scene. They have zero chemistry and it is intercut with slow motion footage of Girls Gone Wild for some reason. It's capped off by Keanu Reeves "O" face. God have mercy.

8) So the oracle sends Neo an email and suddenly he has a purpose. Sure he COULD have been off fighting the machines or formulating a defense, trying to get people evacuated or even working on a plan, but it takes a postcard from the matrix (how is that even possible?) to get his ass in gear.

9) So now he's back in the matrix going to visit aunt jamima. First he has to fight her protector who curiously was not around in the first movie. Why does he need to fight him? Because you "don't know someone unless you fight them". I'll remember that next time I go on a date. He knows the oracle is a program created by the machines. This doesn't seem to bother him however and like a good little boy he accepts her new mission to go get "the keymaker". Why? Well it seems he has "keys". What for? Who knows. He's being held by someone. Who? It's never clearly stated. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. And this is the bulk of the films running time, a "quest" to go rescue someone we don't know for unknown reasons from someone we've never heard of.

10) Re-enter Agent Smith. He shows up the second the oracle leaves and Neo never puts those two things together and finds them suspicious. As you will recall, he was destroyed by Neo at the end of the first film. So what's he doing here? Well, according to him, once a program is DESTROYED as in TOTALLY OBLITERATED, it then gets a choice as to wether or not it will face deletion. Did you ever get the impression when you click "empty recycle bin" that all the programs are taking votes as to who is and who is not going to be deleted? Apparently in the ultra-efficient world of the matrix, that's how it works. I also have a problem with this scene because since Smith is no longer part of the system, why are they even fighting?

11) It's a damn good thing that George Lucas is not George Wachowski and I'll tell you why. Imagine if, when plotting The Empire Strikes Back, George had thought "Waht's cooler than Darth Vader?" and he came up with "100 DARTH VADERS!". Ummmmm, no. That's fuckin' stupid. But it's not too stupid for the brothers. In fact, why bother even choreographing fights anymore? Just let the good people at Playstation do it for you! I will put ANY fight in the original Matrix up against ANY fight in the sequels. Those hits HURT! Remember Morpheus getting his head smashed into the toilet? Remember him bleeding and getting the shit beat out of him? remember how you really FELT for his character? All of that is flushed in the sequels. The fights are completely painless video game bullshit. So does Neo exercise his new powers? Does he fly around and shake the earth or throw objects around? Nope. He just uses karate until he gets bored and flies off.

12) So now we're at the restaraunt. Neo makes note of the fact that all the floors are wired with explosives, a fact that is never mentioned again or has any bearing whatsoever on the ensuing developments. Nothing ever blows up, no one ever threatens to blow anything up. However, for a second during the line "bad for us" I felt like I was watching the Matrix. Notice that there is no more FUN to be had in this film. There's no "whoah" or "I know kung foo" or Neo thumbing his nose. It's like his personality completely died. We no longer experience things with him, we just watch his and everyone else's department store manequinn impression.

13) The Merovingian. He's ok I guess but the dialogue is so dry and abstract. The vagina cake was truly bizarre. Yeah that fly through the girls legs to watch an explosion signifying an orgasm was just....befuddling. What made the brothers think this was the best illustration of causality?

14) So now Neo, God of the Matrix has made his demand, or rather Morpheus has done it for him. Merv says no. So at this point Neo jumps up and starts kicking ass right? Actually he says "This isn't over", gets up and walks away. What the hell? And that would have been it if not for Persephone stopping them and giving the keymaker to them.

15) I guess this is where I'll address the rastafarian disco circus clowns. Remember that the matrix is reality to most of humanity. Would you think it was odd to see those two sitting in a restaraunt? We are never given even the slightest clue why they look like that or how they have that particular power. They're one of the strangest elements of the series. The brothers may just have well have said "How about if Merv has a pet dinosaur he feeds scraps from the table to?"

16) The werewolves. What the fuck is up with this? Talk about out of left field! I'm expecting the giant stay pufft marshmallow man to come strolling by at any moment.

17) Somewhere in here Agent Smith downloads himself into Bane. This is akin to you catching a worm macro virus from your computer. It's total and utter nonsense and shows the Wachowski's contempt for their audience's intelligence.

18) What's missing here? Oh yeah, "guns, lots of guns". This IS called RELAODED right? Here we are more than an hour into the story and we haven't seen a gun let alone seen it fired! Luckily the disco circus clowns brought one so we get a couple bullets in the chase scene.

19) "Everyone who has ever gone up against an agent has died". Those were Morpheus' words in the original film. He goes up against an agent in Reloaded and WINS. During the coarse of this we get a couple more of those ridiculous Karate Kid crane moves the Wachowski's love so much. Then Morpheus lands on the edge of the semi, not once but twice. It's just so stupid. This ends with a retread of "structure explodes in ripples behind person being rescued by Neo" from the first film. By this point there is simply no element of danger anywhere to be found so no one is the least surprised by this.

20) This is as good a place as any to state that all the new music sucks ass. This is diametrically opposed to the original which had a phenominal score.

21) Neo is wearing some sort of dress. He's like a gay priest or something.

22) All of a sudden there's this need to blow up a power station so Neo, the guy that can rewrite the matrix at will, can open a door. So he goes through and meets Colonol Sanders. He tells Neo that he is the 6th iteration and that Trinity will die unless he chooses to reboot the system. Yawn.

23) Neo saves Trinity from the fall but she dies anyway. Here AGAIN the Wachowski's completely abandon their own rules. "Do you think that's air you're breathing?" Remember that? Well apparently Neo thinks that's Trinity's heart that he's pumping! What difference does it make what he does with her residual avatar, SHE'S FUCKING DEAD! Absolutely unforgivable. Not to mention the fact that once again a character is loved back to life. Can we just make a rule that THAT STOPS NOW?

24) Neo suddenly develops the powers of Harry Potter! Yep, he can now blow up sentinals in the real world. Just NUTS!

25) And to top it all off, we end on Bane with a "bum bum buuuuuh!"

So you're rehashing your 'RT' threads??

i liked reloaded more than the other matrix'. Sue me.

RT down again?

Heh, I liked the Matrices in this order:

The Matrix
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Reloaded

Yes RT is being really screwy again today.

hmm ... anything diffreent or just the same crap

The same shit warmed over. Still goes down smooth though.

Yep, Reloaded was terrible. I agreed with alot of those posts, especially the girls gone wild part. MTV paid big money to produce that scene.

As for the rest of it, I've not yet seen any one as dumb as the Wakoski (Sp?) brothers. If you're going to copy a text, storyline, and scenes directly from a famous book without actually understanding the foundations of that book, please don't pick the most read book int the world. That way, you know, people might not catch on to how stupid you two are.

Do you know what the whole problem of the trilogy boils down to?

The Matrix is more interesting than Zion. No ifs ends or buts about it. The Matrix is escapism, flashy clothes, incredible feats, beautiful people. Zion, on the other hand is dirty and damp and dull and depressing (wow a lot of d's there).

Reloaded is a very good movie. Worst Matrix movie, but that doesn't mean it "suck ass".....The groundbreaking effects were for the first Matrix, the role of the second was to (whilst tellign a good thrilling story) play on those effects and make better situations that literally "wow" people.....i was wow-ed.. :wink:

Job done!

Except that it costs 10 times as much as the first film, but told less story and had worse effects! At the end of Reloaded, everything is pretty much exactly the same as at the start.

I agree with pretty much everything you said there, Fett.

I finally saw Revolutions a couple of months ago. Perhaps it's because my expectations were so low after the first two (I wasn't a fan of the first Matrix either), but I actually kinda enjoyed it. Much better than the first two films. I put it down to the greatly reduced amount of talking.

Although, if the oracle had to change her appearance because she was no longer safe... then why, oh, why did she choose a new shell that looked almost identical to the last one?

Thats abit silly, if you dont mind me saying....because if you look at it (not the subject matter) in life sometimes thats what happens...people go through years of nothing happening, so because Reloaded is like life, you dislike it? :???:

Also, why not just think that Reloaded is the build up to the finale...which is of course Revolutions.

Easy: It was a plot hole to cover up for the fact that the actress had died. :wink:

Because it may as well have not even existed. Aside from Smith downloading into Bane, NOTHING from Reloaded impacts anything in Revolutions.

It showed more of Neo's powers; outside the matrix and ressurecting Trinity.
It shows the talk with Neo and the Architect, which was important to understand the Matrix.
It shows why the Mervingian (sp?) was so apprehensive to give them back theyre "savior".
It character builds...Neo and Trinity.

Basically Fettastic, it also does stuff that you dont even realise, because in films, not everything is integral to the plot.

actually

it changed the entire focus of revolutions. Neo was all powerful. The goal of revolution would have never come about if it wasn't for the actions of reloaded and the first part of revolutions. the idea that the matrix and the computers were life as well .. Neo the all powerful in the matrix universe had to get the 2 to co-exist. without a reloaded and jumping straight into revolutions, that wouldn't have happened. That indian girl scene in revolutions was the only redeeming thing about the whole movie .. how it changed the entire thinking of Neo.

Humour me, do tell.

Anyone ever wonder why Neo didn't just stay in Zion to destroy all the sentinals as they came through the ceiling? HELLOOOO!

because neo had no intentions of destroying the sentinels. He realized that the sentinels had a right to live and exist in the world as well. They WERE life. Sati and her dad basically showed him that they were no different than humans, eradicating another life form that threatened them. We eat chickens for survival just the way they harvest human energy.

really .. i thought reloaded had set up such a great ending and revolutions came out and destroyed it.

The i have to agree with loyal here. the entire premise from the very beginning was wrong and it seemed to have a political agenda. Freedom at the cost of ANYTHING!! hell, i'll throw you in the worst type of the world ever but it doesn't matter. I've given you freedom. Respect that! Its really awful .. not only is that kind of stupid but people ARE FORCED into this freedom. tsk tsk.

When I first saw Reloaded in theaters, I didn't like it. Since then, it's grown on me little by little with each viewing, to the point that, y'know, I like it now. It ain't great, but it's head and shoulders better than Revolutions.



Which is funny, because when the Architect mentions the flaws of humanity, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld appear on his screens.

Did you get the impression that the sentinals had families? What was powering them anyway? Did they have little fetus' in them? And Neo's big plan was to keep humanity enslaved, living off the liquified dead. Somehow that just seems "sucky" to me.

the impression couldn't be given. Because till the very end, we were suppose to look at them as nothing but machines. Neo gave the machines a choice, which i thought was precious. Neo was given a choice he could not refuse but he did. He presented the machiens with the sam type of choice, one that they could not refuse. Neo created a situation for both to co-exist. That was his purposes, atleast in the short run.

Has anyone ever wondered, why the EMP wasn't used in a smarter fashion?

I mean one EMP took out everything in Zion and basically all the way up the huge hole dug buy the machines. Spend the 150 years that Zion has been a secret, build 50 ships each armed with an EMP. Fly one as close to the machine city as you can...boom, everything within 2 with machinery is gone. In comes the next ship, gets further towards the machine city....boom. Keep doing this until you are in the machine city, and then you take them out. EMP is like a Nuclear Weapon to the machines, and the humans act as if having it as "their only weapon against the machines" (Which is also wrong since they have Machine Guns) is a bad thing. 50 emps could end the fucking war.

And what is up with Zion's defenses. You know that huge gun they had on top of the tower. Why not make like 10 of those, nothing is getting in then. But noooo. You have to make little Robotech things to show off the CGI.

So instead he invades the machine city and destroys THOUSANDS of machines anyway?

I found the commentaries on the new ultimate DVD edition to be fascinating. The Wachowski's brought in a group of 3 critics that hated the movies to do a commentary and also had a commentary with two philosophers that loved the movies.

It was interesting to listen to these two opposing commentaries to compare and contrast. Both groups are highly intelligent, and both came out of the movies with a completely different perspective and outlook. I was the most interested in the philosophers commentary which showed how deep the movies were, and relayed information, thoughts, and ideas within the films that I hadn't considered before. While I loved the sequels, it gave me even more of an appreciation for all 3 films, and showed the movies are as deep as you want to make them.

Regardless of what you think of the sequels, you have to give the Wachowski's credit for at least attempting to make an action movie that has a great deal of thought behind it, and for having the balls to invite 3 critics to slam their movies on the DVDs. They aren't your typical directors, doing a typical film, and I wish we had more movies and director's like that.