And the “Reloaded” DVD release just further proves that the film can’t recreate the magic of the original without some heart in the movie.
“The Matrix Reloaded” wasn’t seen as just a movie by the Wachowskis, writers and directors of the movie, but a cultural revolution. That attitude meant an almost simultaneous release of the movie, a video game (“Enter the Matrix”) and an anime DVD all designed to integrate and develop the story between the first two movies. While that experiment was not a total failure, the little touches on “The Matrix Reloaded” just continued to bog the movie down.
The entire first 45 minutes of the movie are intended to build a larger sense of importance, community and relevance for the “Matrix” world by looking at the doomed city of Zion. But the first half of the movie contains an incredibly ludicrous dance party at the dawn of the city’s destruction, a confusing turn of opinion about Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) and a wildly unnecessary sex scene.
And when the movie finally gets to the action that the audience has been waiting for, there are still some complications. The plot for “Reloaded” gets extremely dense in all the talk of Neo (Keanu Reeves) truly being “The One,” discovering things about Zion’s past and a vastly confusing and expository talk near the end of the film.
And action-wise, it feels as if the Wachowskis tried too hard in making the movie transcendent. While little tics such as Neo being able to fly and Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) being able to copy himself indefinitely are interesting, they just tend to add to the confusion and bloated feeling of the movie. That feeling isn’t helped by the cacophony of characters that get added in this second chapter.
Jada Pinkett Smith’s Niobe gets thrown into the movie basically to pay off her appearance in the video game and Monica Bellucci’s Persephone throws in an eye-candy/love triangle plot that slows the movie some more. Of the new characters, only the plucky Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) and the shifty Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) make any kind of lasting impact.
However, when “Reloaded” gets its action scenes right, it gets them quite right. The weapons-based fight between Neo and the Merovingian’s henchmen is simple in execution and “Crouching Tiger”-beautiful to watch. And while the film’s giant car chase may be a bit over-produced, there’s a great number of memorable visuals.
But somewhere the heart of the film gets lost. The battle between the unending Smith’s and Neo and large-scale defense of Zion move away from any human grounding in the film.
Compounding the disappointment of “Reloaded” are the DVD extras. While the first “Matrix” was one of the innovators of mega-DVD features, its sequel’s extras are disappointing in comparison to the levels set by recent DVDs.
The most shocking omission is the lack of any commentary on the two-disc set. While the commentary on the first movie wasn’t mind-blowing, a total lack of commentary here is inexcusable.
The second disc’s extras also leave a lot to be desired. The best features are the brief looks at the making of the movie and the massively intense training needed for the movie’s martial arts sequences. It’s an amazing process and the featurettes capture it nicely.
But then “Reloaded” gets lost in itself again. The majority of the features simply talk about the marketing possibilities of the movie. There’s a feature on the video game, one about “The Animatrix” and a list of Web site links.
And the greatest injustice: a “Matrix” skit from the MTV Movie Awards with Justin Timberlake, Seann William Scott and Wanda Sykes. It’s not funny, it’s useless and it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
The third and final installment in the series, “The Matrix Revolutions,” comes out in a week and what once seemed like a sure home run now faces extreme doubt after the backlash to “Reloaded.” And the wasted features of this DVD are just another failed attempt to make “The Matrix” more important than it actually is.
“The Matrix Reloaded”: C
DVD features: CD,”Matthew T. Olson”
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