I may not be in the majority, but I really like The Matrix Reloaded. It’s showing now on AMC (you’re a freaking cable channel! leave the curse words in) and this is the first time I’ve watched it in a while.
Oh I admit the movie’s significantly flawed. Frankly, I think if they’d never gone to Zion at all, and left it as a mystery, the whole saga would have been better off. But then adding in the primal dance club sequence just put it over the top campy for me. And the highway chase scene was completely cliched.
The draw for me is the implications and complications raised by Neo seeing Trinity’s future. Starts with the great in media res opening of the movie. The Morpheus speech sequence (This is a war. And we are soldiers. Death could come for us at any time.) and how it threads the past, present, and future of the mission is brilliant. Not to mention the bit of “random” chance (incoming!) that seemingly triggers Neo’s crisis.
And oh for The Merovingian, a quite worthwhile villain.
Lord knows though, after all the times I’ve seen The Matrix Reloaded, I can’t make any fucking sense of The Architect’s speech. I think I got the bit about choice, but I’m lost after that. May have to go to the Interwebs to solve this one.