By Claude Mills, Staff ReporterIT HAS been four years since the release of The Matrix, the first part of the action-packed metaphorical trilogy that has achieved the rare feat of mainstream success and cult classic status.
This second high-concept, high-budget instalment, which opens in Jamaica tomorrow, lives up to the hype. It is a blend of balletic action, computer-generated special effects, Greek mythology, philosophy, the New Testament (the messiah stuff) and expectations that soar through the roof.
For the most part, The Matrix Reloaded delivers a K.O. punch. And how!
It is a spectacle that will delight the eye, jolt the brain and fire the imagination, plus you get to see what Trinity looks like underneath that black polyvinyl cat suit she wore in the first movie.
Reloaded seeks to increase the emotional stakes for everyone involved while leaving enough of a cliffhanger that audiences will be compelled enough to return in droves for the final (extortion) instalment in November - a tongue-in-cheek nod to the same totalitarian machines in the movie that would bamboozle the human race for their own benefit.
But don't worry. This movie ultimately cares more about action and violence than relationships, feelings and ideas, and the staging of the action sequences is as viciously elegant as we have come to expect.
We join our heroes six months after the end of The Matrix. Reloaded opens with Neo (Keanu Reeves) having a sort of premonitory dream where the love of his life, Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss), falls to a certain death from a skyscraper.
"I wish I knew what I was supposed to do," Neo (Keanu Reeves) says to Trinity after he is jolted from the nightmare.
This is the subtext of Reloaded - the rueful hero, bogged down by the demands of his role, and struggling to understand the nature of his role in the war between humans and machines. Neo (anagram for 'one') is very much like a modern-day messiah, beset by eager devotees who look to him for the answers and understanding that elude them.
A few minutes into the movie, the audience will pick up on the palpable tension between Morpheus (Lawrence Fishbourne) and the all-business warrior-girl Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith). Later, we find that the two are part of a love triangle with Commander Lock (Harry Lennix). Morpheus' belief in Neo and the mission lead him to defy Commander Lock, adding to the tension.
Later, we are introduced to the inner workings of the fabled subterranean city of Zion where Morpheus (Lawrence Fishbourne) makes a rousing 'we are not afraid' speech to the gathered throng. Then the drums beat in tribal decadence, the people dance, and Neo and Trinity sneak off to do the horizontal mambo in delicious slow motion.
AGENT SMITH CLONES
Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), who seemed to have been destroyed in the climax of the first film, is now an updated, free-floating rebel who can multiply at will, making countless clones by consuming other beings in the Matrix.
This sets the stage for the first big action scene where Neo annihilates over 100 of the clones in a high-octane, stick-wielding, fight scene as the camera glides effortlessly through the action in one single breathless shot. In the climax of The Matrix, Neo used a single hand to fight the agents, but since that time, the agents have been upgraded so he must pull out all the stops to beat them.
Gloria Foster, who returns as the grande dame Oracle, introduces a schoolmarmish warmth and lights up the screen in her scene with Neo where she tells him what he must do next: find the Key Maker (Randall Duk Kim).
This search leads to the introduction of a host of new characters, Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), who holds the Key Master prisoner, his treacherous, sensual wife, Persephone, (Monica Belluci) and his henchmen, The Twins.
The Twins are the albino, shape-shifting blonde identical twins (Neil and Adrian Rayment), who are involved in an epic freeway chase, and are arguably the best addition of the new characters. Other additions are Harold Perrineau as Link, the ship's new operator, and Collin Chou as Seraph, the Oracle's bodyguard.
THE CHASE
The 14-minute chase sequence on an multilane highway is worth the price of admission alone, and is possibly one of the best chase scenes ever filmed.
It involves a high-adrenaline kung fu battle on top of a speeding big rig, a helmet-less Trinity zooming against the run of traffic on a Ducatti motor cycle with the frightened KeyMaker as the pillion rider, and a bonnet-smashing scene by Agent Smith that will knock your socks off. And you can all see Morpheus doing some major damage with his samurai sword in this sequence.
Reloaded poses questions about consciousness, choices, power and whether human beings can really ever know if their world is real or not. Do we control the machines, or do they control us? What are the ills ushered in by the switch over from old technology to new technology?
This is driven home by the use by the rebels of the old-fashioned phones with rotary dials to enter the cutting edge world of the Matrix, and the importance of the Keymaker who actually carries around old-fashioned master keys that can do almost anything in the Matrix.
From a Caribbean perspective, what is great about the movie is the espousal of philosophical ideals from and power wielded by people of colour such as the Key Maker, and Morpheus, well, that is until we get to the Source of the Matrix itself - the Architect, a middle-aged, bearded white intellectual type. What a letdown!
Reloaded is a wild roller coaster ride with a few laughs along the way. Just buckle up and enjoy the ride that began when Neo took that red pill way back in the first movie because the rabbit hole goes deep.
Yet deeper still.
