More Details

Studio:Warner Home Video

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Hugo Weaving, Laurence Fishburne

Running Time:138 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review

The Matrix Reloaded delivers added amounts of everything that the first film had, with the exception of surprises. We see more of the "real world" in the "last human city" of Zion and we go back to the 1999-look urban virtual reality of the Matrix for more encounters with artificially intelligent baddies and--the real reason you've turned up--a lot more martial arts superheroics.

The downside is that this is just part one of a two-pack of sequels, with Revolutions required to tie up the story and sort out a great deal of plot confusion. There are other problems: none of the stars have much good material to work with outside the fights and stunts, which makes the film sorely miss the mix of science fiction thrills and character interplay that makes X-2 more satisfying all round in the blockbuster stakes.

However, the Wachowski Brothers still deliver more than enough stand-alone instant classic action sequences to make you ignore their duff script: in particular, Reeves and Hugo Weaving square off in a rumble that gets dicey, as more and more identical Weavings come out of the woodwork to pile on the lone hero, and a full quarter of an hour is devoted to a chase through the Matrix that lets Fishburne shoulder the heroic business. A last-reel encounter with a virtual God, the architect of the Matrix, finally delivers some major plot advances, but the scene is so brilliantly shot and designed--with Reeves framed against a wall of TV screens that show multiple versions of himself--that it's easy to be distracted by the decor and miss the point of what's being said. --Kim Newman

Find out more on Amazon