The Matrix Reloaded (5 Stars)

I intend to watch the new Matrix film this week, either Tuesday or Wednesday, so I'm rewatching the second and third films today. I already watched the first film in September.

Most people say that the sequels aren't as good as the first film. I agree, but I still think they're very good. "The Matrix" could have existed as a standalone film, but the sequels made sense. "Reloaded" (to shorten its title) shows Neo as the reluctant Messiah. Some believe in him, others don't. Many ascribe omnipotence to him and ask him to look over their loved ones. That's a heavy burden for any man to bear.

Nobody is a more dedicated believer than Morpheus. He's spent all his like searching for The One.

The Oracle has prophesied the coming of The One. In "Reloaded" we learn that she's not what Morpheus and everyone else believed. She's not human, she's a computer program, written to give humanity hope. Hope can be something good, but in this case hope is used to keep humanity under control. Hope is intended to manipulate mankind. Hope has manipulated Morpheus. And yet Morpheus still believes. His belief is no longer in the words of the Oracle, it's in the person of Neo himself.

Let's apply that to ourselves. Many people believe in a religion. Let's take Christianity as an example, although it could just as well be any other religion. Imagine that we were able to meet and talk with the people who wrote the Bible, the Evangelists and Paul. Imagine that they told us that Christianity is a fake, and they only invented it to make us better people. How would we react? Would we just close our ears and continue with our belief system?

The Oracle's co-conspirator is the Architect. He's the one who designed the Matrix. First he made it perfect, and then he destroyed it and rewrote it with flaws to make it more realistic to its inhabitants. We find out that the current Matrix in which Neo lives is the sixth iteration. It's Matrix 6.0. The Architect is unable to make it fully acceptable to its inhabitants, so the Oracle adds the element of hope.

Agent Smith returns after seemingly being destroyed in the first film. Do you remember his definition of humanity?

"I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure".

It's ironic that Agent Smith himself has now become a virus. The other Agents just take over one human body at a time, but Agent Smith takes over body after body, until ultimately he'll be the only person inhabiting the Matrix.

New characters join the film, such as Collin Chou as Seraph. The role was offered to Jet Li, but he turned it down. He said he was afraid that his martial arts moves would be digitised and copied by the studios. I don't understand that. Couldn't his moves be copied in other ways?

Other new arrivals are the Merovingian and his wife Persephone. This adds a new flavour to the mythology of the Matrix franchise. The Merovingian is a rogue computer program. He exists in the Matrix, but he doesn't obey the machines who created it. He's a smuggler who secretly moves programs into and out of the Matrix. 

"Reloaded" has an incredible 15-minute car chase that's worth the price of the film in itself.  "Reloaded" is a great film, even if I didn't include it in my top 100. It's a film that deserved to be made.

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