Woah.

Well I finally saw The Matrix Reloaded yesterday and while it couldn’t possibly have topped the hype propelling the sequel in the first place I had a pretty good time watching it. I went with my friend Diann and she had pretty much the complete opposite reaction to the movie. She hated it so fully that she has sworn to curse my name – at least for a few days – until she gets over the feeling of being cheated out of two and a half hours of her life.

Part of me understands her feelings since I thought the movie was paced poorly and spent a little bit too much of its time swimming in its own half-baked Freshman stoner philosophy but when the fight scenes broke out and the special effects started their own Shock and Awe campaign it was pretty hard for me to maintain a validly critical eye.

So sure the dialogue is pretty lame for most of the movie and way too much time is spent in Zion and under the Earth instead of kicking major computer program ass inside The Matrix but I’m willing to forgive these mild transgressions if what I’m going to get in return is a Summer Movie “Event” in the truest sense of the term. Summer Movie “Events” are supposed to push the envelope of what you thought was possible in the cinema. It seems as if too often the people have been willing to settle for movies with fast cars and loud explosions and maybe an alien or two and allow them to fall into the “Event” category when something needs to be far riskier to attain that status.

The Matrix Reloaded takes risks and because of that it falls flat sometimes. But without those risks we wouldn’t have Neo fighting a hundred Agent Smiths, or a fourteen minute freeway chase full of ballet and destruction, or even an image of a man flying through the sky that doesn’t just look borderline silly. Not to mention I kind of like the little twist revealed when Neo finally meets The Architect face to face.

So for these reasons I give The Matrix Reloaded a hearty pat on the back and a “way to go man” while I stock up on the popcorn and wait for the third part of the story to unfold in a few months.