The Matrix Reloaded is the second installment of the Matrix series, written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and released by Warner Bros. in North American theaters on May 15, 2003 and around the world during the latter half of that month. The Matrix Reloaded earned $281 million in the US and $735 million worldwide. The other parts of the second installment are the computer game Enter the Matrix, which was released May 15, and a collection of nine animated shorts, the Animatrix, which was released on June 3. The Matrix Revolutions was released six months after this film, in November 2003.
Overview
The Matrix Reloaded was largely filmed at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, Australia. The freeway chase scene was filmed at the decommissioned Naval Air Station Alameda in Alameda, California. Producers constructed a 1.5-mile freeway on the old runways just for the movie. Portions of the chase were also filmed in Oakland, California, and the tunnel shown briefly is the Webster Tube connecting Oakland and Alameda. Some post-production editing was done in old aircraft hangars on the base as well.
While surpassing the first part of the trilogy in cinematography and special/visual effects budget, some fans have suggested that the sequel adheres more closely to the action genre, with less of a focus on the intricate plot and philosophical musings that made the first film the subject of intense fan devotion. This opinion is not universally held, however. Some viewers have argued that the philosophical insights of the first movie were overrated, while many others have expressed satisfaction with the consistent continuation of the original film's plot and metaphysical speculation in Reloaded.
Reloaded earned an estimated $42.5 million on its Thursday opening day in the United States, a new record surpassing the one set in May 2002 by Spider-Man, which took in $39.4 million on its first day. The movie earned $91.8 million over its first Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, establishing it as the second-best opening weekend ever after Spider-Man's 2002 record of $114.8 million in ticket sales during its three-day opening weekend. Reloaded garnered the biggest debut ever for an R-rated film, topping by far the $58 million for 2001's Hannibal. Reloaded eventually broke Beverly Hills Cop's 19-year-old record for the top-grossing R-rated film of all time, holding that record only briefly, until it was taken by The Passion of the Christ a few months later.
Most of the main characters from its prequel, The Matrix, are included in Reloaded, including Neo (Keanu Reeves), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). There are also many new faces such as Link , the Merovingian, and the Architect. Filmed simultaneously to the third movie, The Matrix Revolutions, it includes action scenes such as a chase involving over 50 vehicles, including motorcycles and 18-wheelers. In addition, there is finally footage of Zion, the underground city alluded to in The Matrix.
The film was banned in Egypt because of the violent content and because it put into question issues about human creation "linked to the three monotheistic religions that we respect and which we believe in". Egyptian media claimed it promoted Zionism since it talks about Zion and the dark forces that wish to destroy it.
Pirate copies of The Matrix Reloaded appeared on file sharing networks such as BitTorrent and eDonkey2k within two weeks of its theatrical release. Unlike some pirate copies of new movies, which are covertly filmed from a cinema screen, the Reloaded copy is high quality, and is believed to have been made from a film print. [1]
Plot
The Threat
Niobe, fresh from her adventures in Enter The Matrix, calls an emergency meeting of all Zion's Matrix operatives. She has successfully recovered the information left by Captain Thaddeus (in The Final Flight of the Osiris): 250,000 sentinels are tunneling towards the underground city of Zion and will reach it in 72 hours. Commander Locke, the ranking military officer of Zion, orders all ships and their crews, including Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus, to return to prepare to the onslaught of the machines. Morpheus defies Locke's directive and asks one ship to remain at "broadcast depth" to await word from the Oracle. Morpheus believes that when she contacts Neo, the Prophecy will be fulfilled and the machines will be stopped. Captain Ballard and his Gnosis accept the challenge.
Word is indeed sent, and the Nebuchadnezzar ventures out. But one of the Gnosis crewmembers, Bane, encounters Agent Smith, who seems to copy himself onto Bane. Bane/Smith then leaves the Matrix.
The Oracle
In the meantime, Neo is having trouble sleeping and is haunted by dreams where he sees Trinity, now his lover, fight with an agent, crash out a high window, and get shot in the chest on her way down. He does not, however, see her die (though he does see her impact with an automobile at ground level). The Oracle eventually contacts Neo and, meeting in a courtyard, they have a characteristically cryptic yet enlightening conversation. She curiously mentions Neo's sleeplessness, which is odd since that was apparently only an affliction affecting Neo in the "real world." In talking with the Oracle, Neo learns that everything in the Matrix isn't really as it seems.
The Oracle is a computer program, a part of the machine world. She offers Neo a red candy that looks like the red pill Neo first took to leave the Matrix and enter the "real world." He does not eat the candy; he merely pockets it. The Oracle says that most programs work as intended and are consequently invisible. On the other hand, programs sometimes go awry and are "assimilated" back into the Matrix. Faced with deletion, she says, programs would rather choose "exile" and be free in the Matrix instead of being deported back to the Source, the machine mainframe. This, it turns out, is where Neo must go in order to stop the machines and save Zion.
To return to the Source, Neo must first go to the Keymaker, another program/person with "keys" to everything. He is held captive by the Merovingian, a dangerous program among the eldest in the Matrix. The keys correspond to "backdoors" to all the computer programs of the Matrix.
Smith
The Oracle wishes Neo good luck and exits the courtyard just before Smith (formerly Agent Smith) arrives. While it appeared that he was destroyed at the end of The Matrix, Smith explains that he and Neo are now somehow connected. Smith realized that he should die, but understood the rules and chose not to. Now he, like Neo, is free from the rules of the Matrix, and desires to exact revenge. He has figured out how to replicate himself at will through touch (this is what he did to Bane earlier in the movie), and recruits a gang of self-copies to attack Neo, resulting in an extravagant fight scene dubbed "the Burly Brawl." At a stalemate, Neo uses his new ability to fly (first shown at the end of The Matrix) and escapes.
The Merovingian & The Keymaker
Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus leave to visit the Merovingian who is accompanied by his wife Persephone and the Twins, his two silvery bodyguards who have the ability to become ethereal. After a discussion about cause and effect and the nature of the world, the Merovingian denies them access to the Keymaker and bids them adieu and goodbye. After puzzling over what went wrong, the trio is unexpectedly led by Persephone, who is upset with her husband, to the Keymaker. Trinity and Morpheus escape with the Keymaker by car and are chased onto the freeway by the Twins, who are later joined by two agents in a 15-minute freeway chase scene. Neo stays behind to fight a half dozen of the Merovingian's bodyguards.
Meanwhile, the machines continue burrowing and are a little over nine hours away from reaching Zion. In response, the entire hovercraft fleet is strategically placed for a surprise counter-attack when the machines approach. Back inside the Matrix, having survived the freeway chase, the Keymaker explains how to reach the Source: "There is a building. Inside this building there is a level where no elevator can go and no stair can reach. This level is filled with doors. These doors lead to many places--hidden places. But one door is special. One door leads to the Source." To access the building, its alarm must be disabled and to do that the electricity must be cut. In addition, the core network of the electricity grid must be accessed and the emergency fail-safes deactivated. For 314 seconds, the mainframe can be entered (a reference to Pi, a famously transcendental number which plagued ancient geometers who were, like the Architect, in search of a perfectly rational mathematics -- see squaring the circle), but the Keymaker warns, "Only the One can open the door, and only during that window can the door be opened."
The Architect
Neo enters a room surrounded by television monitors and stands opposite a man who identifies himself as the Architect, the creator of the Matrix. He explains that Neo is the eventuality of an anomaly which the Architect has been unable to remove from the almost total mathematical symmetry of the Matrix. The Architect reveals that the Matrix is much older than Neo knows. He says this is the sixth version of the Matrix and that Neo has had five predecessors. The first version of the Matrix was designed to be perfect, but failed due to the inherent flaws in every human being. Subsequent versions were designed in which nearly 99% of subjects accepted the simulation. Still, a certain fraction rejected the Matrix, creating a "systemic anomaly" which if left unchecked threatened the stability of the Matrix. Those minds were allowed to leave the system and live in Zion to preserve the stability of the system. Now Zion is to be destroyed, Neo's anomalous existence is to be merged into the mainframe Source, and the Matrix is to be "reloaded" or reset.
After Neo's code is assimilated, he is to choose 23 individuals (16 female, 7 male) that the sentinels will spare the lives of to rebuild the next version of Zion. If he does not comply, a catastrophic system crash will result, killing everyone plugged into the Matrix, which combined with the destruction of Zion would mean the elimination of the human race. The Architect tells Neo he can choose between two doors. One leads to the Source and the salvation of Zion. The other leads to Trinity, who, as his dream predicted, is being chased by an Agent. Neo chooses to save Trinity, apparently at the expense of the human race, and the Architect admonishes him, "Hope: it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness."
To Be Concluded...
Back in the real world, Morpheus is dismayed that the Prophecy has been unfulfilled. Neo tells Morpheus that the Prophecy was just a lie, another system of control. The Nebuchadnezzar comes under attack by sentinels and the crew must abandon the ship. Outside, in the sewers, they run from the sentinels, but Neo senses something has changed. He can "feel" the sentinels' presence, even though he is no longer in the Matrix. Somehow he disables the sentinels with a burst of electric energy, but then he falls unconscious and enters a coma. The crew is rescued by another hovercraft. The film concludes with the news that the surprise counter-attack has failed. Someone set off an electromagnetic pulse early and five hovercraft were immediately disabled and they were quickly overrun by the machines. There was only one survivor: Bane. The film ends with an ominous "To Be Concluded...", referring to The Matrix Revolutions.
Discussion
In this film, Neo returns the favor to Trinity by bringing her back to life this time. The scene used visual effects which some see as illustrating a healing energy coming from Neo, that merges with the rapidly fading energy of lifeless Trinity. It could also be seen as another manifestation of Neo's ability to manipulate items (in this case, a human heart) within the Matrix.
At the end of the movie, when the crew is forced to abandon the Nebuchadnezzar due to a Sentinel Tow Bomb attack, Neo uses his abilities to destroy the sentinels in the "real" world. This twist has sparked a flurry of discussions, many of which suggest that the "real" world that Neo and the rest of Zion occupy in is another Matrix inside the Matrix. Or alternatively, they never really escaped from the first Matrix and it's all been an illusion. Most viewers believe the first theory. Neo asks the Oracle in the third installment why he could do what he did, and she tells him the power of the one comes from the source, thus giving him some supernatural powers even in the real world. While most viewers were disappointed by the third installment, some specifically point this answer (one of the few answers given by the third installment) as a low-point. The answer is considered elementary, especially in contrast with the otherwise-high-brow (arguable) film. A blogger wrote, "a third-rate screenwriter could have come up with a better reason"
Another theory states that Neo's ability to produce an electromagnetic pulse in the real world is the result of receiving programming from digesting a piece of candy given to him by the Oracle, although we never see him consume it. Receiving programs via foodstuffs is demonstrated by the Merovingian earlier in the film.
There are various references to philosophy, mythology and computer science. The scene in which Neo fights Seraph is a simultaneous reference to the spirituality of martial arts and to challenge-response authentication. It is also suggested that the Oracle is actually an oracle machine. A cleverly constructed technical detail is Trinity's use of an ssh exploit, which had not yet been discovered (and thus fixed) in 1999 (the year which the Matrix simulates), to break into a computer. The "hidden floor" full of doors is floor number 65, which is a multiple of 13.
Characters throughout the movie continually remind us that Neo is still only human. At the beginning the Agents say, "Only human." The Merovingian says, "You see, he is just a man," when Neo's hand bleeds briefly. The Architect tells Neo, "You remain irrevocably human..." Whether these are meant to guide or mislead the viewer is debated.
In the Architect scene, some of the screens show images from Neo waking up in the real world. It is unclear how these images supposedly from outside the Matrix could be known to the Architect inside of the Matrix, unless perhaps the Architect can read Neo's memories.
The Unix utilities Nmap and sshnuke appear during one scene, in which they are used to shut down a power station.
Soundtrack
Don Davis, composer on The Matrix, returned to score Reloaded. For many of the pivotal action sequences, such as the "Burly Brawl" he collaborated with Juno Reactor. Rob Dougan was also commissioned to provide a track, ultimately scoring the battle in the Merovingian's chateau. As with its predecessor, many tracks by external musicians are featured in the movie and its closing credits, and the soundtrack album. Leitmotifs established in The Matrix return, and some used in Revolutions are established.
Some of the collaborative cues by Davis and Juno Reactor are extensions of material by Juno Reactor; for example, a version of Komit featuring Davis' strings is used during a flying sequence, and Burly Brawl is essentially a combination of Davis' unused Multiple Replication and Juno Reactor's Masters of the Universe (which also appeared in its original form in The Animatrix).
Cast
The cast of The Matrix Reloaded is largely the same as The Matrix, with only minor additions.
The character of "Tank" from The Matrix did not return, reportedly due to actor Marcus Chong's salary demands and conflicts with the Wachowski brothers. The character's role of ship's Operator is taken over by newcomer Link, Tank's brother-in-law. In passing, Tank is mentioned to have been killed; no details are provided, but it is possible that he died shortly after The Matrix due to wounds inflicted by Cypher.
Actress Gloria Foster died during the editing. Her role of "The Oracle" is reprised by actress Mary Alice, here and also in subsequent sequels and video games. Her change of appearance is specifically addressed as a programmatic quirk in Enter the Matrix.
Additionally, Aaliyah was originally cast to play the part of "Zee" until her untimely death in the summer of 2001.
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