For turning Agent Smith into a Three Stooges routine.
For making Zion a cult of ravers.
For pretending that Roy Jones Jr. can act.
I give it a C-
B-
D-
B+
B-
B+
B-
Everything other than the special effects, F.
The special effects have to be acknowledged, so final grade D-
I give it a 4 out of 10. About the same as Back to the Future 2 in terms of the middle movie in a trilogy.
B+
Not perfect, but better than the original and a quality middle movie. Nowhere near the Two Towers in quality, but I give a ton of credit for the Brothers for having guts to take things in a direction that don’t necessarily please the majority of people.
This is gonna sound weird, but durring the dance scene in Zion, I thought to myself: “This place looks just like Fraggle Rock”.
B-
The original: A+
Reloaded: C-
C+
I went in expecting nothing more than a slick action movie. The action scenes delivered, but the surrounding material was pointless and distracting. Cliche scenes with the Nebuchadnezzar Pilot and his worrying wife along with the “love triangle” involving Morpheus were particularly tedious. Jada Pinkett Smith may wrestle the “Most Wooden Performer” title away from Steven Segal.
Neo coming to terms with his identity and responsibility as “The One” would have been interesting and may have added some drama to his encounter with the “Architect.”
First Viewing: A
Second Viewing: A-
I originally thought B+, but your points have some persuasiveness, still give it a B.
Although nobody’s gonna confuse Keanu with Valentino, the relationship dynamics between Neo and Trinity were enough to keep me involved (most techno-geeks don’t “get” human interaction, so I understand your low grades). The freeway chase was intense and the climax fulfilling, but the first hour of mundane blabber left me wondering if I’d stumbled into “Stargate 2.” But even though Monica Bellucci’s character (Persephone) was as pointless as 90% of the cast, OMG! If we’re here to grade the movie, I’ll call that “extra credit.”
Just because the original was off the charts, Reloaded doesn’t get tabbed a failure because it didn’t reach the same zenith. It’s an acceptable bridge to the climax and had some great action sequences.
Oh, you’re KIDDING!!! That stuff made me ILL!!!
Seriously, I had to hide my face in my boyfriend’s arm to avoid gag reflex when those two were alone. The dialogue between them never reached a higher level than I-love-you-I-need-you-I’m-never-letting-go, effectively reducing a potentially respectable relationship between two veritable badasses to needy, sappy, puppy-mush. And the scene where Neo brings her back to life was just puke. “I just love you too damn much”…AAGH!! Oh, how painful it was; how maddeningly I twitched.
In sum, their attempts to make it appear deep and soulful were IMO ultimately overdone and somewhat depressing. Was it too much to ask to have just one witty exchange between them? A smile, maybe? Something to make me think they’re not pining and suffering the entire time???
As for everything else: The Link/his woman plot was extremely dull, cliched, and irrelevant. I thought the Morpheus/Niobe thing was almost cute, but everything Locke said or did sucked. The Merovingian was amusing; Persephone was somewhat interesting. The special effects were pretty awesome in places, and too fake in others. A few of the fights that happened seemed to have no purpose but to interrupt the story (i.e. Neo vs. a jillion Smiths). The score was nowhere near as “fitting” or aesthetically pleasing as the one in the original, and finally, some of the ideas put forth in the movie were thought-provoking if you could catch them, but their presentation often seemed hurried and generally unsatisfactory.
Based on all the above, I give it a B-. I may have had a lot of gripes to give it that, but that’s because I know the Brothers can do better. And though I do agree with Moonchild in that Reloaded isn’t a bad movie just because it didn’t measure up to the first (c’mon, it was better than Spider-man, and Spider-man was at least a C), I do think we have a right to expect more badass-ness from those who have shown they are capable of it, and critique accordingly.
It seems unfair to say the movie had no subtlety, because The Matrix wasn’t exactly subtle, but the first one had the excitement of discovery. It didn’t telegraph its punches so much. In place of those, this one had scenes that were talky. Very talky. At one point, when Morpheus kept going on, I was ready to shout “You KNOW they’re coming for you - why are you standing around? MOVE YOUR ASSES!”
Some of those exposition-type scenes were interesting, other times I had this feeling they were making it up as they went, and didn’t know what they were saying.
The action scenes kinda had the same problem. When they did something new, it was cool. I liked Morpheus’s fight on the truck, and Neo vs. all the Smiths after he grabbed the pole - that got cool. Other times, you knew what they were going to do and it was the same as last time, only more, and I just wasn’t engaged on the same level.
Sometimes it was way too much: there must’ve been hundreds of bullet holes in that car on the freeway, but everybody was fine. They definitely shot through the door a TON of times. How did Trinity and that agent sure shot at each other a lot on the way down that building and kept missing. She had a machine gun or a semi-automatic, too.
One of the cool parts of The Matrix was that there wasn’t much of a human side to things. There was the action, and the mind-twistyness. Here, you had romances and love triangles and politics and things, and apparently, the Wachowski Brothers aren’t so great at writing that kind of stuff.
Neo did some cool stuff - the love scenes, in my opinion, not included - and it was interesting to see his powers transition to the real world. (I had a feeling that was coming. :D) I’m not saying Reloaded was unwatchable or anything, but when it had weaknesses, they were very apparent somehow. In any case, I’m hoping most of the problem is that they wanted to set up a lot of things for Revolutions in November, which I’m sure I’ll end up seeing anyway, and which will hopefully be very cool.
For the sake of being computer-y, I’ll give this one a C++.
C+ I liked the original better. The rave in the cave went on for WAY too long.
About 6.5/10, but the worst part is that IMHO, it’s a big disappointment in comparison to the original.
There also definitely wasn’t enough action – especially in the first hour, and I agree with the cave scene. However, I think one of the lowest points in the movie was that corny music played right before the credits rolled.
“Fraggle Rock”. HILARIOUS!!! roflmao! One of the best friggin’ things I’ve read on here in a while. Thanks for that perspective 
I give the movie a B+. I’ve read all of your posts and can’t help but feel that you just don’t ‘get it’. Now, I’m a far cry from what I’d call enlightened, but I do believe that the brothers intended this movie to truely appeal to the semi-hardcore to hardcore fans…the ones (weak pun intended) that wanted to see more than trippy wire tricks.