’’Oh Matrix Reloaded! You mean sequel to the Matrix? Man I loved the Matrix! This must be as great too!’’ Stop right there, young man/woman! Don’t fall for the bait, since that lovely original will fall in your eyes when you eke out one and a half wasted hours in front of this second episode of the trilogy! And I mean fall badly (it sure fell to the bottom of my eyes)! Matrix Reloaded is a complete let-down to the publicity that the first one built up- like a big black gorge after the snowy white peak of a mountain.
Oh black reminds me...Green, metallic grey, white, black and maybe skin colours- those are the only colours this dark sophisticated melodrama offers. Little surprise the story isn’t at all colourful or eyecatching at all. Perhaps- drab, leaving you green and violet.
Where the last instalment left us, that’s where this one begins. For the less enlightened, how about a flashback? A guy called Neo, his girlfriend, Trinity and their mentor Morpheus are trying to save the ’real world’ as it’s called through a computer programme called the Matrix. Now boom! That ramshackle battleship of theirs goes clanging through dark corridors of that real world and boings into ome city called Zion, with members of the crew saying - ’’Its great to be home’’(don’t worry, this is new stuff, you didn’t forget anything from the last one) Kabam there are some mumbo jumbo prophecies (hey give me time- I still haven’t quite figured it out) that some stupid octopus- resembling gizmos called ’sentinels’ are clanging their way down to Zion to destroy everything. (I suggest they head to the mechanical beauty parlour first) Thus, the quest is to save the only standing real-world city of ZionIn comes a grumpy commander ( God knows his name), whose hatred for baldie Morpheus is fueled by the fact that they both have their eyes fixed on beautiful Captain Niobe. Morpheus babbles something about entering the source of the Matrix or some rubbish like that, much to Commander Sahib’s disagreement. That’s the main gist of the movie- locating the source of the Matrix software
This is while Trinity and Neo are busy rocking the bed with their activities, so kids please- SCRAM! During their ’mingling’, Neo gets a vision of Trinity being peppered with bullets in Mid-air (it’s about time too) and freaks out. Instantly, they go full speed into the Matrix, despite the commanders’ warnings. The Matrix, incidentally is haunted by the Matrix Mogambo- Agent Smith. Worst part is that Agent Smith can now create ’judwaa bhais’ with touch- conversions ( Alas for the Christian missionaries- conversions were much tougher) So Neo scurries off towards that hag of an oracle who made the prophecies- and joins the pigeons she’s feeding bakwaas. She unloads a heavy philo lecture, heavier than her, (oh that’s heavy) and guess what? She’s a program too- and there’s some keymaker who knows the way to get to the source of the Matrix. (In case you’re eyebrows are knitting together in confusion, I’m glad I’m not alone!) There’s a big hungama to get to him- Neo fighting off a hundred Agent Smith together until he realises Eureka! that he could have flown off at the start itself; a bang- bow sequence on a congested highway, a face-off with horrible swordsmen, men with pathetic hairstyles who can take anyone’s spirit like liquor thieves, and worst of all, that Persephone, ( an extra’s wife) whose only job is to ask for a kiss from Neo, accept it gratuitiously, and get the hell out( maybe to replace lipstick). After all that dhishum- dhishum, that has every possible thrill, chill, stunt, martial art and special effect( maybe only missing the thinnest thread of reason and logic) comes the climax If you’ve been slouching and admiring your nails till now, you’d better sit up and listen. This part is interesting
Because he can duplicate himself, Agent Smith has turned many of the humans into machines. He tries to duplicate Neo when he’s making for the Source of the matrix with the Keymaker, and then Trinity comes rushing in to save him. Bechari herself gets herself gets Italian pasta made out of her by a furious Agent-smith. In the meantime, Neo finds the source and meets a new character called the Architect. He made and programmed the Matrix. He rolls a whole lot of flowery language, more flowery than the Botanical Gardens, so I’ll tell you what I understood. Apparently, Neo is the sixth version of Neo of the Matrix and blah blah blah... tell me if you understand anything beyond that, Ok? After the dictionary- sale- increasing- lecture, he points at two doors- one towards salvation of the Matrix, and one where Trinity is dying. Lovestruck Neo remembers his vision, and goes running to save her. But too late. Trinity’s dead. But Neo, the ’One’ as he’s called, puts his hand inside her chest to make it beat again (Doctors, are you listening?) and voila- she’s back! And after that there’s a horrible discovery- but I’ve already revealed too much-that’s for you to find out...
On the whole the Matrix is a complete waste of time and space in which I had to explain the story. There’s just hi-fi special effects and action sequences, and before you know it, something else’s happened, and you scratch your head even harder. There is no visible stream of thought or storyline, no plot, so much so that it appears to be a collection of scenes that happened to end up together. They’ve even reduced viewership of children by sprinkling smooching and love-making across the movie. There is total confusion, and I constantly peered askance at my friends in the cinema to ask what the hell was going on. The Matrix Reloaded has left fans like me disappointed, having taken things too far. If only they ended it in the first version itself.
On the good side, the acting by Keanu Reeves (Neo), C.A Moss (Trinity)was good to some extent though there wasn’t much to act, and most of all the action was brilliant That is the only saving grace of this movie.
How great it would have been if those high- action- tension scenes had some string or flow to them, some sense so that the viewer could follow their voyage into the abysses of the computer world. But no. Whatever little story there is is embedded in layers of heavy philosophy, mostly borrowed from Hinduism, which makes the barely perceptible, totally imperceptible. What’s action without story? A tiresome trek without a destination. Matrix Reloaded is a bunch of Fake Tricks, that worked at first but are now Overloaded
If you just have to see it, or your kid is urging you to see it, please leave your brains in a bucket at home and come and enjoy. otherwise I firmly recommend that you don’t see this horrible injustice to good starts. But yes, if you’re an action-lover, don’t wait a moment to grab a ticket
Looks like it’s time for me to leave the computer world. Goodnight. I may not be The One, but I can tell you this- I’ve learnt my lesson after seeing this movie- to have sense- and I have sense presently not to waste time jabbering about a failed bonanza of bangs, booms, special effects that don’t have any effect on the viewer. I’m off to the real world- where logic and reason rule, gravity exists, a rainbow blooms, and robots don’t have twins.
It’s sure great to be home.