THE MOVIE SUCKS.

Back in the day, I jumped on the Matrix bandwagon late. In 1999, I was too busy seeing The Phantom Menace repeatedly and bloodying the nose of anyone who dared to put it down in front of me to take in The Matrix. Finally I saw it on DVD, and I loved it instantly. The telling of the story, the effects (duh), the classic Agent Smith "I can taste your stink" speech; I fell for it hook, line and red pill. I'm not saying Matrix didn't have its share of (glaring) flaws, but as contemporary science fiction epics go, it was an instant masterpiece. I must've watched it a hundred times- it was one of those great "fun" movies you didn't have to be in the mood for to watch and enjoy. I'll put it this way: it was just intelligent enough to make you forget Keanu Reeves' just-say-whoa doltishness.

I also recall friends of mine treating Matrix like the "intelligent" alternative to George Lucas' "childish" prequel. Matrix creators The Wachowski Brothers, suddenly finding themselves worshipped by sci-fi buffs, video-game freaks and trenchcoat-wearing high school mass murderers alike, even made some snide comments about Lucas and Episode I in interviews, boasting that the Matrix trilogy, when finished, would make everyone in the world forget all about that galaxy far, far away.

With any luck, the rancor (pun intended) and bitterness foisted upon Episode I by critics and moviegoers alike will be visited upon The Matrix Reloaded ten-thousand fold. Why? Because Reloaded makes The Phantom Menace look like 2001: A Space Odyssey(NOT Travesty). So let me get this out of my system before I proceed:

(To the tune of "Nyah-Nyah Nyah Nyah-Nyah"): STAR WARS IS BETTER THAN MATRIX! STAR WARS IS BETTER THAN MATRIX! NEENER-NEENER NEEEENER! TOLD YA! TOLD YA! QUI-GON JINN UP YOUR AAA-ASS! PHHHBBBBBTTTTT!!!!

You better believe it. 2005's Episode III could star Martha Stewart and be about giving rim-jobs to 80-year-old Filipino men, and it would still lightsaber Reloaded into leathery, sunglass-wearing patties.

Ahem. Anyway. Why do I say this? Because five minutes into this movie, I forgot every single good thing about the original. I knew I was fucked when I saw that Warner Bros. (ugh) and Village Roadshow Pictures had both "Matrix-ized" their logos. Ah, marketing. The Matrix Powerade (still tasty, I might add) I'd ingested prior to viewing began to inch its way back up my esophagus.

Then BAM! we go right into an action sequence featuring the lovely Carrie-Anne Moss (she of the massive lesbian fan base) as Trinity, and some agent dude. And it's... just... empty. Zero dramatic tension. And that sets the tone for the entire movie. All the suspense, the excitement, the discovery- all gone.

Another early warning sign was the first time we see Zion. Everything in the first film built up to it. But what happens in Reloaded? Ah, we've been to Zion a gajillion times already! Pshh! No biggie! We never get to see Neo's first visit to this so-called So-Cal of the dystopian future, so for us, like him, it's no surprise. There's no unintiated character in the movie to identify with, so all sense of wonder is lost. No pay-off, just plop. Then... a rave breaks out (must be more of those red and blue pills lying around). I'm not kidding. Shots of the suprisingly tawny and buff denizens of Zion shaking their collective groove thing are intercut with a semi-interesting scene of Neo carefully penetrating Trinity's birth canal, creating a fluff scene so obvious I expected the subtitle "PADDING" to pop on-screen. This went on for what seemed like forty minutes, until I began siding with the Agents: find Zion and wipe this hippie shithole out.

There is no sense of pacing, and no real reason to pay attention to anything at all in this movie. It goes from a scene where everyone is standing around talking in stilted, freshman-year-writing-class doggerel about philosophical jibber-jabber, to an "action" scene, obviously built around the stupid logic that if something worked in the first film, it'll work even better with more of everything. So, we get fight scenes with more Agent Smiths, more Squiddies, etc. Then it's back to more Philosophy 101 lectures from more boring, one-dimensional new characters. The fact that some of them are supposed to be programs, and not human, does nothing to cushion the blow of their punishingly dull diatribes. When the Matrix was used as an explanation for vampires, werewolves and aliens, I checked my lips for crack-pipe burns.

The film is not without its own interesting twists and ideas, but they are simply buried under a deluge of mediocrity. Programmers now figure into the Matrix landscape, but instead of, oh, I don't know... exercising godlike powers, they do things like program a piece of chocolate cake that causes a girl's pussy to hum like a V8 engine. (Even with special effects, it was the least convincing movie orgasm I've seen since Meg Ryan's in When Harry Met Sally. Don't you know you're supposed to blush, Meg? That's the dead giveaway!) Twin albino bad guys- probably intended to be the Fetts of the movie- inexplicably turn into spooks from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when they pass through solid matter. I recall hearing that the studio was going to be developing new special effects software for this movie, like they did with "bullet-time" for the first one. They must have forgotten. The twins look like ghosts from Peter Jackson's The Frighteners (all due respect to a classic film and director), and that came out years ago.

The bottom line is that Reloaded screams "hack-work". Since the original's release in 1999, the whole intermittent usage of slo-mo technique it made famous has turned up in everything from music videos to goddamn Old Navy commercials. It's old hat. So here we are in 2003, and not a fight scene goes by in this movie that doesn't go slo-mo needlessly and gratuitously every few seconds. Remember that game Max Payne, where you had a button that made the action slow down so you could dodge bullets? Imagine if you were trying to play while your friend with severe epilepsy had control of the button. The film is awash in hackery, and I'm not talking the computer kind.

I'll likely check out Matrix Revolutions when it comes out later this year, though I'm sure my housemates will know better. If the preview I waited through ten minutes of credits to see is any indication, parts 2 and 3 of this little saga could possibly have been distilled down to a tight half an hour. Or maybe they could have left Matrix as a single chapter. They probably should have. If you want to see a fantastic sequel this summer, see X-Men 2: X-Men United. If you're a Matrix fan, you seriously might want to consider taking the blue pill and sticking with good old reality.