Enter the Reloaded Revolutions
The Matrix Sequel Duology Revisited
I'm sure I'm one of the few handfuls of people that continually revisit the Matrix sequels. There's no question that the first one is the best, and it's also my favorite. There have been countless breakdowns as to everything the sequels do "wrong". I agree with most of the common complaints: poor pacing, ungraceful injections of philosophy, bland characterization, and the flat lining that comes with ending a sequel with a cliffhanger. Despite these blaring issues, I can't help but keep revisiting the films. There is a well of potential that these films sit at the precipice of, and it's the suggestion of that potential that keeps me coming back.
If you have the capacity for pain that I have, you learn to develop an appreciation for that space where things are not quite resolved, and the suggestion of resolution is just right beyond the horizon. When I watch the Matrix sequels, I obsess more about what they could've been than what I find wrong with them. None of this obsession makes me angry because I actually appreciate the effort that the Wachowski's put into the production. Every consecutive viewing, I can appreciate the effort and leap of faiths that they took more and more. These are incredibly ambitious films. While the first film takes the time to present a story that has philosophical depth, in a form that's digestible for a wider audience, the sequels go against that and concern themselves with pushing the story and themes in a more challenging manner. Honestly, they earned it. The Matrix was such a massive success as a film, as a story, etc. that there was really very little chance it could be topped. So why not do something different?
I have to clarify that I do have a nostalgic connection to the sequels that extend beyond the critique. These films came out at a time when I found myself feeling some semblance of peace again after divorce drama, while juggling going through the loop of puberty. It appears that most of the media I engaged when in this period is infused with some of the deepest nostalgia of all of my personal era. Nostalgia is powerful in that way. When media consumed is a source of the nostalgic joy, it's, in fact, an embrace of the state of freedom that was felt at the time it was consumed. The onslaught of the marketing behind the sequels felt like a great time to be alive, as someone who was blown away by the DVD just a year or so earlier. It covered all the things I thought were the epicenter of cool at the time: anime (The Animatrix), a video game (Enter the Matrix), a screensaver (digital rain all day), a nu-metal tie-in song, and even a Powerade flavor.
In many ways, I don't think the quality of the sequels matter as much to me as they should. The combination of marketing, timing, and personal escape has led me to be unreasonably loyal to these films. The reward is the ability to see past the flaws of the sequels to focus on what they do right.
Reloaded and Revolutions are not separate films. They are, in fact, one film, split down the middle, for cynically getting butts in the seat, twice, within a six-month period. That failed, horribly. Not only were audiences disappointed in Reloaded, especially due to its cliffhanger ending, but Revolutions is effectively disserviced by letting the audience forget the important connective threads established in Reloaded. The best viewing experiences I've had with these films have always been when I watched them nearly back to back. What becomes clear, is that if the films were cut down and combined to a roughly three hour cut, the result would've been much more satisfying. Examples of what could’ve been cut include: Neo having a conversation with one of the Zion council members, Hamann:
Notice how the scene starts with Neo at the rails, with levels of Zion in view. Hamann then talks, and the two decide to go to the lower levels. Now look at the staging again....it's the same staging. It's very much a cheap trick to simply make the green screen + CGI to distinguish the scene change, and it's dullness clashes with the depth of the conversation that occurs. The conversation is about the contradictory way in which the humans, despite being at war with machines, still depend on machinery to survive. This is an interesting topic to explore, and it's relevant to the themes of the duology. In the end, to defeat Agent Smith and save both Zion and the Matrix, the machines need Neo as much as he needs them. This is also further supported by the fact that there are sentient programs, routinely discarded by the governing forces of the Matrix, that cooperate with humans regularly to survive. The issue with the Hamann scene is that it takes the least interesting way to get to the most thought-provoking ideas, diminishing the very ideas the Wachowskis are trying to convey. This scene is one of many of this sort throughout the duology. That tendency also undermines what is the most consequential scene in the entire trilogy:
Learning the Neo is in fact part of a cycle that has repeated before, is something I really enjoy. Learning it from a man who's sitting in a chair from Office Depot, that looks like the Colonel from KFC, and in a bland white room adorned with fake monitors is not the right way to deliver such a compelling idea. Despite all the movement in action and liveliness from Reeves throughout other key moments, here he just chooses to ask questions in a stale staging with stale delivery. The only redemption to Reeves’ performance here is the wide array of performances of Neo variants in the monitors, losing their shit about the absurdity of the situation. The idea being conveyed here is that this Neo, our Neo, is the most evolved out of all of them all due to his composure. This is a problem endemic with the drama of the sequels, more than half of the time, the least interesting way to convey information is the route chosen.
I'm someone who loves Keanu Reeves. I feel that the first Matrix is such a great film because there is something special in the way he displays the shock and awe about everything that is happening to Neo. It's easy as an audience member to feel like I’m there with him. There is a sincerity there, and it's greatly reduced in the sequels, with only a few moments where it appears. Nothing about Neo’s power and new-found reputation means he can't be more emotive in the thick of it. Most people will never have the pleasure of seeing him be the One anyway, making the choice to make him less expressive a great disservice to what Reeves is capable of bringing to the role.
In the midst of this, at least I find comfort in sequences that are well-worth the price of admission. Suffering the worst of the films still provides the set-up necessary to make the following pieces satisfying, like:
Fleshing out Morpheus
Of the characters that get the best treatment in the sequels, Morpheus is the obvious winner. He gets an epic motivational speech for the orgy, the opportunity to be the winner of an agent fight without superpowers, and he even gets an arc of losing blind faith for the real thing. It doesn’t feel like he’s there to service Neo’s journey. He is truly on a clear arc for himself. Adding a love triangle component between him, Niobe, and Locke is a nice touch. It can’t help but make me wish that Marcus Chong didn’t sabotage his ability to be in the sequels. He’s such a wonderful performer that brought such uplifting energy as Tank. What would have been his fleshing out is instead, given to Link. Harold Perrineau is an excellent performer in his own right, and is well-suited to the task. He just has the unfortunate burden of being a newly developed character of many introduced in the duology.
Smith as an Agent of chaos
Smith's role is that of a wild card. I find the idea that Smith is consuming everyone in the Matrix to form replicas of himself to be an interesting motif. It's a bit undercooked, as the importance of it doesn't become clear until Revolutions. In Reloaded, without that understanding, his emergence feels like a pointless distraction. Hugo Weaving does a lot of the heavy lifting with his scene chewing, which at least makes it always entertaining.
The Highway Chase
The best set piece of these two sequels is the highway chase. I love how the multiple plates spin — with cops, agents, and the Twins all chasing Morpheus and Trinity. Having those two diverge with a great fight sequence for Morpheus, and the motorcycle chase with Trinity, is just outright masterful. The entire sequence is everything the Matrix films do well. What really underpins its effectiveness is the fact that the characters don't have the invincibility of Neo. The major issue with all fight scenes in the sequels featuring Neo is that he isn't truly under threat of being killed. I find the Chateau fight gorgeous visually and elegant in choreography, but at no point do I fear for Neo's life. The Wachowskis absolutely wrote themselves into a corner by writing Neo to be as invincible as he is.
The best scenes are always what keeps me spinning and coming back to these films. Behind every flaw is a conceptual diamond. I can see these diamonds, but it's entirely reasonable that most viewers won't do the necessary squinting. The Wachowskis have this habit of making films that reward upon continued investment as the cost of accessibility. Over the course of their filmography, there have been high and lows with regard to that tendency. Even if a film underperforms, such as Jupiter Ascending, it develops a cult following because it's embedded with ideas so compelling to its target audience (The Princess Bride meets Star Wars), that someone will be talking about it many years later.
I haven’t touched upon Resurrections, as I feel that film acts as an independent epilogue to the entire series. I absolutely love it, in a manner that’s just as light-hearted as the film itself. I love it so much that I will eventually write an entire essay on the film alone (you can quote me on that). It’s widely misunderstood, and a victim of inflated expectations that are divorced from the work the Wachowskis (specifically Lana Wachowski) have been making for years since the previous sequels.
Thanks for reading!
Man, this was a fun trip down memory lane. I remember sneaking into The Matrix with my best friend (we were not old enough to buy a ticket) what a massive cultural event.