Wide Load

With The Matrix Reloaded, writer-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski discover that "cool" has its limits. In the original Matrix, the whiz-kid filmmakers showed a mastery of movie cool in all its forms, including the perpetual chic of leather and sunglasses, the geek grandeur of cyberpunk sci-fi and martial arts movies, and the sleek veneer of its standard-setting "bullet-time" special effects.

Justifiably confident in their creation, The Wachowski Brothers gave The Matrix an open ending and have returned to the well — twice — for sequels shot concurrently: The newly released Matrix Reloaded and November's The Matrix Revolutions. Reloaded displays grander ambitions and a higher budget, but its coolness can't compensate for the bugs in its system.

Reloaded proves an appropriate title, as the Wachowskis have to tell a different kind of story here from the first film. Then, a hacker nicknamed "Neo" (Keanu Reeves) learned that modern life is in fact a computer simulation controlled by intelligent machines that live off the human race.

Now, Neo and his lover Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) live in the subterranean city of Zion and fight in humanity's resistance to the machine regime. Reloaded's first section unfolds like a Benetton version of the Rebel Alliance scenes of the first Star Wars trilogy. Zion proves a stodgy place, but it marks a genuine attempt to extend the Matrix mythos. When the Wachowskis cut between a massive cave rave dance party and Neo and Trinity having sex, the filmmakers mean to celebrate the sensual pleasures separating humanity from the machines.

Reloaded falters when it tries to advance its story line. Zion braces for invasion from thousands of robotic octopi, while Neo's mentor Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) believes that humanity's salvation lies with the superpowers his prodigy displays. Neo contends with competing programs that look like human beings but have persistently vague powers and agendas.

One blessedly unambiguous figure is Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), Neo's nemesis from the first film, who returns as a grudge-holding free agent. In Reloaded's most memorable scene, he shows a new ability to duplicate himself until Neo is brawling with scores of identical Smiths. You forgive the obvious computer effects because of the fight's sheer audacity as Neo uses one Smith to knock over scores of others like bowling pins.

Smith's self-Xeroxing provides one of the rare moments when Reloaded measures up to the original. One of the appealing qualities of the first film was how its sci-fi action setting offered such a neat metaphor for modern personal computing. Just as we routinely log on to the Internet and download files as part of our daily work and play, so do the Matrix heroes log themselves onto new environments and download skills directly into their heads. In Reloaded, a new character called the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) finds links from one location to another as readily as Google.

Reloaded neglects to explore the implications of its fascinating premise and seldom provides a satisfying substitute. Instead it detours into James Bond territory, pitting the heroes against a decadent Eurotrash "program" called The Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), who extols the pleasures of French profanity ("It's like wiping your ass with silk") and provides a raunchy visual joke that shows how an orgasm looks in computer code.

His wife Persephone (the flawlessly beautiful Monica Belluci) resents the human emotions she's lost over time, setting up a key plot point. Yet Reeves, Moss and Fishburne convey so little of their own feelings, and conceal their eyes so often behind shades, that they're no easier to identify with. Reeves' understatement can be endearing and plays nicely against the notion that Neo is the Messiah — he's humbled when mobbed by would-be followers in Zion. Moss only seems comfortable in her one-on-one scenes with Reeves, while Fishburne gives Morpheus such slow, dispassionate line-readings that he seems no more emotional than Agent Smith. Harold Perrineau Jr. occasionally provides the human touch as the team's "operator" and the audience's surrogate.

Reloaded gives us little to invest our emotions in, even as its set pieces strive to astonish. In one of the first shots, Trinity smashes through a skyscraper window in slow motion and shoots backward at a villain who plummets after her. The Wachowskis bring even more brio to their extended car chase — which includes a motorcycle driving against traffic and Morpheus wielding a samurai sword atop a moving truck — but as much as we admire the technique, we don't feel a part of the action.

Most frustratingly, the script repeatedly builds to confrontations, only to offer opaque conversations about causality, destiny and choice. If the Wachowskis want to speculate on the nature of free will, more power to them, as long as they can propel the story or generate suspense. Instead, the philosophical debates shift the narrative into Park every time.

Reloaded's advocates may argue that you can't judge the film without seeing Revolutions and all the Animatrix tie-in shorts. But on the most basic level, the last-ditch mission of the final act lacks coherence, the climactic revelations resist comprehension and the cliffhanger ending leaves us confused. We can only hope that Revolutions reboots the trilogy, because Reloaded, despite its visual upgrades, ultimately crashes with a flurry of error messages.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com