 Carrying the weight of massive expectation, The Matrix Reloaded opens with "preview" screenings tonight (Wednesday), accompanied by a tangle of conflicting reviews. "The thrill isn't gone from the sequel, but the surprise is, and it hurts more than you'd think," writes Ty Burr in the Boston Globe. Likewise, Elvis Mitchell comments along the same lines in the New York Times: "What the first Matrix had going for it was surprise, a freshness that would be impossible to match." On the other hand, Colin Covert launches his review in the Minneapolis Star Tribune by remarking, "Let me begin by saying: Wow! Wow, as in unbelievable, astonishing, amazing, awe-inspiring. For sheer exhilarating spectacle, The Matrix Reloaded is the film to beat this year." Indeed, most of the film's reviews are in the latter vein (the website RottenTomatoes.com says that, overall, 75 percent of the reviews are positive), but those who deprecate the film have salient voices, representing most of the major film critics. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, for example, writes: "If a concept is to sustain itself over a multipart story, it must make an emotional connection, and this Reloaded ... cannot do that." Likewise, Mark Caro observes in the Chicago Tribune: "Action scenes can't be heart-stopping if the story hasn't gotten your ticker going to begin with." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post, while allowing that the film is "exhilarating fun," expresses disappointment with it nonetheless, writing that the sequel, "as an overall piece of storytelling ... never really hits the heights of the [original]." Taking note of the fact that the trilogy centers around man's effort to withstand the machine, Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star writes, "If there is an overriding form of disappointment that presides over the many shortcomings [of The Matrix] ... it is that it ultimately represents the triumph of the Machine. ... All this talk -- and boy, there's a lot of it -- of choice and free will notwithstanding, the Machine has won!" On the other hand, across town, at the Toronto Sun, Bruce Kirkland comments, "The Matrix Reloaded is stunning, absolutely thrilling -- and a giant leap forward from the original. This sequel is not just reloaded; it is an entirely new arsenal." Roger Ebert, although remarking about the "quasi-Shakespearean doublespeak" of the dialogue, nevertheless concludes that the film is "an immensely skillful sci-fi adventure." To a large extent, Steve Murray in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution agrees, but concludes more unfavorably: "You get a lot of portentous talk, then some great action, then some more talk. It dawdles, then it rushes." John Anderson in Newsday makes a similar point: "Being bulldozed by faux-tech double-talk is part of the sci-fi experience, and what Matrix fans presumably want is action. There's plenty. Too much, in fact [the] action sequences become ludicrously long -- mirroring, in a way, the gassy dialogue." |
