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It's got flaws, but its pretty good.
By The Critic
unrivaled.info
The original Matrix is the mind f*** movie that had everyone wondering if they
were in the real world or not. To my surprise, after watching The Matrix a
second time, I found this movie to be excellent in everyway: good story, action,
plot and a big surprise to shock everyone. No doubt, The Matrix is a classic: a
perfect example of how to make a good movie. So when word got out the Wachowski
brothers were making 2 sequels back to back, everyone was excited about the
possibilities. When the trailer debut in the opening of Star Wars: Episode 2, it
had most of us in awe... I almost cried after seeing the second trailer this
spring. I couldn’t wait to see this movie! I had predicted it will be the movie that beats all
movies. While I did enjoy Reloaded, I wish I could've been right about my
predictions.
After being spoiled rotten by watching the trailers, just about every fan were
disappointed with the movie and rightfully so. Warner Brothers and the Wachowski
brothers basically sold out their prized film by previewing 95% of the best
scenes in the last two trailers. Being hyped up and then seeing the movie was a
big let down; feels like there was nothing else special to be seen. And that's
too bad... really. Reloaded comes close to being a classic with a good plot,
story line and breakthrough stunts and special effects. It’s pretty much a geeks
dream, with an in-depth world and storyline details. But even with all the good
in Reloaded, there comes a few big no-nos here for a movie of this caliber. Things
that had me saying, "what the hell were they thinking?" despite my praise of
this movie, Reloaded has some bad flaws that keeps it from being great.
And that’s too bad...really.
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The 2 disk DVD set has one whole disk dedicated
to the movie and the other for the extras. The 16X9 enhanced anamorphic
widescreen (2.35:1 aspect ratio) video quality is very good.
Saturation is excellent as are the contrast details in the movie. For a movie
with this much onscreen action, its great to see artifacts being minimal as you
really have to look for them. Overall it's an outstanding video transfer, I
imagine only a High Definition source could provide better. The Dolby 5.1 mix is
also very good; I've actually found the soundtrack on this DVD to sound better
than it did in the theater giving me a much better experience with the film. It
has a neutral tone throughout and its not over active in the fronts. Like most
DVDs out there, the surround was not the most active, but there
was some good directionality here and there.
The extras on this DVD set are pretty much minimal as the Wachowski brothers
plan on working on a special edition box set with all three films. No commentary,
no deleted scenes, no trailers and no detailed anamorphic documentary. Only one decent
documentary, a few "behind the scenes" stuff and some promotional materials are
present on the disk. "Preload" is a behind scenes look at the making of
Reloaded. It has interviews, fluff, and a few "making of" bits here and there.
This is probably the most appealing of all the extras on this set. "The
Matrix Unfolds" is promotional-behind the scenes look at the trilogy tie in
with animation DVD "The Animatrix" and the ho-hum video game "Enter the Matrix."
A waste of time if you ask me. "The Freeway Chase" is a making of documentary
of... the freeway chase scene. This is the best and most detailed extra on this
set, although I think more people will prefer "The Matrix Unfolds" because
it covers Reloaded in a more broad sense. Still, when the special editions come
out, I expect most of the documentary to look like "The Freeway Chase" as it
covers that scene in great detail. Fans will be happy to know there is also the
MTV movie award spoof with Justin Timberlake and Sean William Scott. There were
a few comedian cameos in this spoof, so if you haven't seen it you should
definitely check it out.
I usually don’t get too specific when reviewing movies in order to protect the
reader from spoilers, but in Reloaded's case it’s pretty unfair. Keep this in
mind when reading the review: there are things that really bring this movie up
and down and many of them are specific. If you want detailed
accounts of this review you may read the Matrix:
Reloaded Critic's notes, but be warned: it contains lots of spoilers!
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The good: It's worth noting what is good in Reloaded is top
quality; elements only a classic movie could have. One of the best things in
Reloaded is its overall story structure. Sure, the weak cliffhanger ending
will have you dumbfounded and the dialog and pacing could have been better, but
the heart of the story is rock solid. Some of the awkward dialog threw me off,
but after seeing this flick a second time, I found the story to be very good.
And some (not all) of the stunts and special effects sequences are breakthrough.
You will see things here never been done before and quite frankly they are
impressive. Half of the martial arts in the movie is awesome (the other half was
not so hot and lacked imagination however; read the bad for more info). Most all
of the cast do a solid job here, but Keanu Reeves (Neo), Hugo Weaving (Agent
Smith), Monica Bellucci (Persephone), Lambert Wilson (Merovingian) were notably
excellent.
The bad: While Reloaded is top notch in certain parts, a few
elements are also mediocre:
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The dialog and pacing at some parts of the movie were awkward.
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Isn’t the whole idea of using special effects to fool the audience? As
I've said before, some of the special effects are awesome, but there are
times when things don’t look quite real. Specifically the CGI version of a
human. Most of these scenes were short but not short enough for me to
miss. A few edits would fix this problem; they didn't have to be in the
movie. The fact that I saw them is really unacceptable for a movie of this
caliber.
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There was a bit of mediocre fighting sequences in the movie. While half of
it was really good, the other half had me groaning with boredom. After
about the 4th or 5th fighting sequence, it felt forced and unnecessary.
What makes the first movie's fighting scenes so special is they are short
in numbers and full of flavor. (Click here for
Critic's notes on my favorite fighting sequences, remember they
contain spoilers). Cutting the
fighting sequences from 5 to 2 and a half would make a major improvement.
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Wait I'm not done! The music was incredibly average in some of the action
sequences particularly the next to last one, which would have been the
best of in the movie. Dare I say some of the music reminded me of the
Resident Evil movie (2002) score. It’s that bad!
Not all of it was really terrible, but it seems someone at quality control was
sleeping at the wheel at times... or maybe the Wachowski brothers have poor
taste; who knows what went wrong. Many of these elements could have been
tightened up with a little tweaking. And you’d think a movie with a 200 million
dollar budget could afford to fix these things. I can’t go into anymore details
without adding spoilers, but you'll know what I mean when you see it. What the
hell were they thinking...?
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Execution - 3: the story and plot is very good. Awkward dialog,
silted pacing and terrible editing brings the score down a bit. Cut out
them fake looking slow-mo human shots please!
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The Stars - 4: overall, the stars do a good job reprising their
role of the main characters, but Keanu Reeves, Hugo Weaving, Lambert
Wilson and Monica Bellucci were notably excellent.
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The cast - 3: not as good as the first Matrix cast. Much of the back up
characters are less memorable this time around and the chemistry between
some of the characters (especially Neo and Trinity) was yawn-inducing.
Solid however, I don’t think they could have done a better job.
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Special effects - 4: awesome and sometimes breakthrough CGI and
stunt work for the most part, but they still cant get a human right in
CGI. It really is the directors' fault for allowing some of the less
realistic shots in the movie, so I wont penalize the special effects team
too much. The martial arts are half and half with me. Some good some
average, but all not terrible.
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Tilt - 5: I loved Reloaded despite its flaws.
Unrivaled rating: 3.4
Overall: a good plot, story and breakthrough special effects puts
Reloaded in the pretty good category, but nagging little flaws keeps it from being
classic. Without a doubt the first movie was better, not only in story but in
execution as well. Still, if you’ve seen the first one you should go see second
one. I recommend only after seeing the first movie. Otherwise watch out! You
might find yourself in the Matrix.
