Home Culture You’ve Gotta See The Matrix Reloaded – Essential Cyberpunk Cinema

You’ve Gotta See The Matrix Reloaded – Essential Cyberpunk Cinema

by Cory De La Guardia
You've Gotta See The Matrix Reloaded - Essential Cyberpunk Cinema

Looking to Over Deliver, The Matrix Reloaded has more Mind Blowing Features than the Original

The Matrix Reloaded is one of the few films that completely validate a nerd’s taste in film. This is the second film in one of the most epic, fascinating and original trilogies in modern cinema. It was brought to life by the incredibly talented Lana and Lily Wachowski. In the first Matrix film, they created new camera techniques and changed how Hollywood made action movies. From that base, they built upon a most excellent sequel.  

The Fights Step Up in The Matrix Reloaded

So at the end of The Matrix, Keanu Reeves’ Neo has discovered that he is The One and has the ability to do things no other being in the Matrix can do, including defying gravity. This movie builds on that from the start. Very early on, Neo meets Seraph (Collin Chou), protector of the Oracle (Gloria Foster).  As a preview, the two do a pretty slick martial arts dance across some tables in a restaurant. 

Later on, Neo is dealing with a fairly powerful dude called The Merovingian (Lambert Wilson). He is a program with great power and influence in the Matrix. The extended battle that results between Merovingian’s henchmen and Neo is awesome. Flying up and down a massive grand staircase, flipping and kicking, swinging swords and other medieval weapons, Neo battles six really tough looking dudes. Of course, this is after he made all of their bullets stop and drop to the ground. Parrying and stabbing, rolling and dodging, the fight is chaotic and intense and incredibly shot. Honestly, it’s a great five minutes of action.

Later on Neo fights a returned Agent Smith( Hugo Weaving), who has developed a new power of his own. Smith can infect himself into other programs and people, meaning there’s dozens of him vs just one Neo. It’s a crazy fight scene to see because it looks like Neo is actually fighting several copies of the same guy. The Smiths consistently use swarm tactic techniques to fight him.  To one up them, Neo pulls out a sign post from the ground to defeat them, swinging it so hard it actually whistles in the wind. That’s a nice touch.

The Car Chase is Pretty Much the Second Act

Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) are trying to escape Merovingian’s Twins (Neil and Adrian Rayment). So that means we get an awesome car chase in this movie. The introduction of The Merovingian doesn’t diminish the fact that the Agents are still on the lookout for hackers and escapees from the Matrix. The scene quickly devolves into a chaotic three-way battle with various goals. The twins are trying to get back the Keymaker, the Agents trying to kill everyone and Trinity and Morpheus are trying to escape. Cadillac CTS’s and Escalades are all over the road, get shot up, flip and explode. The vehicles are as many characters in the chase as the actors themselves. 

Eventually, Morpheus gets a couple of great moments during this car chase. He has a fight of his own against an agent which goes surprisingly well for him. But the best part is the game of chicken against the twins and their vehicle, taking them out with a great slash from the Katana that flips their car and explodes. He is pure samurai. It’s crazy!

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Yeah so, the Matrix has ghosts I guess?
Yeah so, the Matrix has ghosts I guess?

The First Matrix had Ghosts and Monsters. That’s a Thing You Know Now

Moviegoers had a lot of questions after The Matrix came out. If the world is fake and the creation story is a parable about one of the previous versions of the Matrix, then what about other myths and folklore? That gets answered in The Matrix Reloaded. In the older versions, there were monsters like werewolves, vampires and ghosts.  Well, the Merovingian has held onto them and uses the monsters now as muscle for his operation.

His wife Persephone (Monica Bellucci) used silver bullets to kill two of the henchmen early in the Chateau scene before Neo’s epic fight. This established very quickly that some of these questions were being resolved. The Twins are ghosts that chase Trinity and Morpheus. They’re able to float and be intangible or solid at will.  The idea of these guys being martial arts masters and having supernatural powers to boot is a great twist for a kung fu action film. It also makes it more believable that these henchmen can try and stand toe-to-toe with Neo because of their heightened strength and speed.

The Merovingian and Persephone Need Matrix Marital Counseling

Seriously, what is their problem? At some point, you start to think their original programming was to mess with the other one.

For three movies, we watch the ultimate romance between Neo and Trinity. Time after time, they put their lives on the line for one another. At one point, Neo uses his abilities to pull a bullet out of her body. She’s dead and the Matrix Messiah decided that wasn’t going to last. It’s the epitome of movie love.

Seriously! Get Counseling!
Seriously! Get Counseling!

Then we have The Merovingian and Persophone. They Should get Matrix divorced, which is, I don’t know, separate hard drives? While The Merovingian is showing off at lunch by flashing his goons and titillating a stranger in the restaurant, Persophone is killing off old programs, running a smuggling ring and giving tips to the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. For a couple of programs, they sure are bad at communicating. 

Also, there is the reddit theory that The Merovingian used to be The One in previous versions of the Matrix. There are some clues there, if you got the time to for an easter egg hunt. Maybe it’s true. Maybe that’s why Persophone no longer loves him. That relationship isn’t the only dead thing in this hollow world. 

This is the movie that ups the ante and brings back the world of The Matrix. Neo and his Superman bit  deliver. The huge fights and the amazing car chase that was so intense and involved that Warner Bros. Studio built their own freeway. It was actually a more efficient and effective way  to shoot the car chase. There are some awesome fights and moments in this film that makes anyone wonder why anyone hasn’t seen The Matrix Reloaded yet.

We know cyberpunk movies, so let us tell you what you’re missing. What’s timeless? What didn’t age so well? Share this article, and we’ll make the case for The Matrix Reloaded.

Did we miss something here? Was there an unforgettable scene or classic one-liner that just shouldn’t be left out? What are your favorite parts of this movie? Leave us a comment below, and we’ll try to update the article with your suggestions!

Hey, chum. These posts don't write themselves. If you wanna stay in the know, it's gotta be a two way street.*

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