The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
As they were finishing up The Matrix in 1999, the Wachowskis already had an idea for a proposed trilogy. They just weren’t sure if they wanted to do the next two films as sequels, prequels, or a combination of both. Some continuation ideas were utilized for comics on the film’s official website, whatisithematrix.com. The international success and the even more overwhelming smash success of the DVD release assured Warner would want more Matrix films.
Because they had many ideas for where they wanted the story to go, they decided that the easiest thing would be to create the next two films as one sequel split it into two parts, and released into theaters months apart. It saved lots of money to make the sequels together by also not having to regroup and retrain the actors from training for their martial arts.
To minimize spoilers going viral across the internet forums, the Wachowskis would only show the script to a very select few. The actors were asked to sign without seeing the script, and many top executives at Warner Bros. could get a glimpse despite funding the money and making decisions about its production.
Keanu Reeves signed a $20 million (or $30 million) contract to star in the second and third films, plus backend money (15% of the gross) that might net him up to $100 million. He was eager to do the sequels because he felt connected to his character and the importance he plays in the story. He liked that the script seemed more ambitious and his character better developed. He believed in it so much that he signed away his profit percentage deal to the visual effects and costume design teams, claiming that those who created the film should benefit from the rewards. The twenty-nine crew members made about $2 million each from the profits. Keanu felt he already had plenty of money and could live comfortably on the money he’d made for several lifetimes. He also surprised the stunt team members who participated as the non-CG Agent Smiths in the Burly Brawl by buying each of them a brand new Harley Davidson motorcycle. He thought they deserved a bigger thank-you for putting their bodies on the line whenever he wanted a new take.
It took some time to make a deal for Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne to return.
Clayton Watson was cast as The Kid’s character after giving a one-paragraph synopsis of a scene to audition with. The Wachowskis saw hundreds for the part and were looking for those who did something extraordinary and unique with the character based on the small description.
The character of Link was created as a replacement for Tank, who survived the first Matrix film but apparently not for much longer. This was due to a salary dispute with Tank’s actor, Marcus Chong. Shortly after the release of Matrix Reloaded, Chong sued Warner Bros and parent company AOL later because he wasn’t given equal treatment as a Screen Actors Guild member and he had a 1998 verbal agreement and a 2000 contract that his character would be ongoing and wouldn’t be replaced for the sequels, but lost because the character was written to be killed off between the first two movies and Link was written as a new character to pilot the Nebuchadnezzar, played by Harold Perrineau Jr. Chong claimed further damages that he was defamed by being labeled a terrorist and subsequently blackballed in Hollywood from future roles, but Chong did get arrested in 2000 after making threatening phone calls to the studio when salary began breaking down. Chong reportedly wanted to make a million dollars to appear in the sequels and get the exposure of his higher-profile co-stars in terms of attending press jukets and premiere galas while Warner Bros. would only go as high as $400,000. Chong alleges that Warner wanted to starve him out into accepting a bad contract.
The initially intended titles were “Matrix 2” and “Matrix 3”. They wanted to release “Matrix 2” for Christmas of 2002 and “Matrix 3” in Summer of 2003. The Wachowskis eventually picked the name “The Matrix Reloaded” for the sequel.
The Wachowskis want to include Jet Li in their yet-unscripted film to play a character called Seraph, a role initially written for Michelle Yeoh (a scheduling conflict with the first starring vehicle made with her new production company prevented her participation), though there were budgetary concerns about adding another major star. They passed on Li when he asked for $13 million instead of the $3 million offered for the 11-month shoot. Li was worried that by allowing the crew to film and digitize his moves for several months into their computers, they would retain the rights to digitally use his signature style and he wanted to retain his intellectual property and assure that future filmmakers didn’t copy his recorded moves and put others faces on them. Li argued that he was getting older, so even he couldn’t copy the moves he did that day like computer whizzes might do in the future with his recorded moves. The role went to a far less pricey Collin Chou.
Grammy-nominated singer Aaliyah was cast in the role of Zee but died in a plane crash in August 2001. The Wachowskis were torn about whether to recast the role or remove it, but they determined that the character was too critical, so they recast. After briefly pursuing others on short notice, including Eva Mendes, was announced in April 2002 that singer-actress Nona Gaye, daughter of Marvin Gaye, would play the role. Also dying shortly after appearing was Gloria Foster, who reprises her role as the Oracle, due to complications from diabetes. They juggled as to whether to write out her character or recast the role for the third entry, opting for the latter.
Due to a strike set to start on June 30, the Wachowskis would move production from Australia to San Francisco, where they would work on special effects, then return to Australia to complete the films when the strike ended. The strike was averted anyway.
Training ran Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 5pm in a warehouse in Santa Monica. Martial arts choreographer extraordinaire Yuen Wo-Ping returned to handle the training and moves. There would be more sophisticated wire work that allowed such things as back flips and cartwheels to be done in a single fluid shot. There would also be more kicks and even flying involved. Instead of fighting opponents one at a time, they would fight multiple opponents, which meant faster shofts in choreography and having to sell each punch and kick to land with enough force to take them all out. In addition, Neo can now fly, which adds to the needs for fluid complexity. Reeves and Moss suffered injuries during their training. Moss bruised her knee after twisting it wrong and ended up needing to use crutches for six weeks. She worked on her upper body strength in the interim. Reeves had left ankle pain; an MRI and X-Ray couldn’t find any issues but they had him wear a cast out of precaution. Sometimes, Reeves would submerge his body in an ice bath to numb the pain.
Keanu also needed to take time off to attent to his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Syme’s funeral, who died tragically in a car accident about a year after they’d lost their daughter. After she left for England again, Keanu flew in Hollywood friends to Australia to spend time with him to keep bordeom at bay. He also took to drinking lots of vodka and whskey, plus finding new women to spend the evenings with, including an English former newswoman named Rachel Jones.
The back-to-back films were originally scheduled for a 250 day shoot but lasted longer. A pending Screen Actors Guild strike had the production opt to film second-unit direction first then take off for a few months to resume in Sydney, Australia. The production looked into Cleveland, Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, and Toronto as possible locations.
Because the Wachowskis couldn’t find an available stretch of freeway to create the right sense of impending doom, a retired Naval base in Alameda was chosen to build a two-mile loop freeway (at the cost of $300,000 per quarter-mile) for a car chase sequence in a retired naval base at the cost of $2.5 million. The construction crew grew ornery thinking the unertaking was madness for seven weeks of shooting. However, the Wachowskis felt it was important for maintaining control of the sequence and assure privacy for the film. After the scene was shot, they reportedly tore it down and donated the material to be used for low income housing projects in Mexico.
The 17-minute battle of Neo vs. an army of Agent Smiths, aka the “Burly Brawl”, which was mostly done using computers. They wanted to create a scene that would be impossible to do with wire choreography, and something no other movie could easily rip off like they had the ‘bullet time’ sequence from The Matrix. The scene cost $40 million alone to produce, making it the most expensive fight sequence made, even to this day.
Over 2500 effects shots needed to be rendered, over six times that of the original film.
Supposedly, Matrix Reloaded begins only three days after the first film ends. Neo’s wardrobe exudes more confidence, while Trinity has fllen in love, so more of her feminity emerges.
As philosophy was a big part of The Matrix, the Wachowskis connected with many academics who taught the subject to work out ideas for the sequels. Harvard and Princeton scholar Cornel West makes an appearance as Counselor West of the Zion Council, in a part written specifically with him in mind. West was courted to appear by the Wachowskis, who read and enjoyed his early philosophical writings like “Prophesy Deliverance!” and “Race Matters”. West helped the Wachowskis by providing commentary for their video releases when they wouldn’t, along with Ken Wilber.
Agent Smith is now a rogue program, disconnected from the Matrix directly, which is why he is causing chaos and can replicate himself, rewriting the script for the Matrix program much like a supremely gifted human hacker might. He has gotten a taste of human emotion and a need for self-preservation. He likes feeling that he has a choice and will consume anything he can in order to gain more power to sustain himself.
It premiered at Cannes Film Festival in May of 2003.
There were scenes in the shooting script, shot but removed before the theatrical release of The Matrix about Neo being the sixth iteration of “The One” that Morpheus had identified. All five of the prior Ones died trying to take on an Agent. Morpheus admits that he felt he could anoint anyone as The One and they would become it. However, with Neo, he actually felt he truly was The One this time. The sequels find the Wachowskis returning to the notion of five prior incarnations of The One prior to Neo, but they were not false, and existed in prior boots of The Matrix.
With Reloaded, the Wachowskis seem to subvert The Matrix by questioning hero narratives. Neo is told is his the sixth iteration of The One, essentially a glitch that the system is aware of, an anomaly that will happen from time to time and the Matrix has enacted measures to deal with, who must ultimately choose to reload the Matrix to repeat the cycle, as all prior Ones have chosen to do, or to let the entire system crash and end humanity. Neo determines he’s going to do something unique to avoid perpetuating a system he’s sworn to oppose, which is to try to make peace with the machines.
To promote the film, nine animated shorts that provide further context to the stories and characters, four of them written by the Wachowskis, would be released in coordination as The Animatrix, on the internet, then released on DVD.
The scene in Zion required about 900 extras to represent some of the 200,000 people that populated the cavernous city. The set was contructed mostly from styrofoam with urethane foam painted on top of it to give it a realistic limestone-like look. The Wachowskis wanted it to look organic, a place of birth within Mother Nature, like a womb. But they wanted it well-lit and warm rather than dank and cold, so they constructed lava pits to illuminate and heat the environs. It should also feel like a holy mecca, so the effects team worked to give it high ceilings, like a cathedral, with temple-like pillars.
The Wachowskis deliberately refused to do interviews so that what they said about the films wouldn’t become dogma. They specifically designed the movies not to provide answers but to introduce questions. Questions like: What is reality? What does it mean to be human? Does God exist? If they provided the answers to these, they would be limited to one sliver of the answer, rather than provide the open space for multiple interpretations, just as we have many interpretations of reality, humanity, and religion.
The first film seemed more cut and dried – machines were bad and humanity was good, but The Matrix Reloaded says that it’s all relative, just as goodness in humans is relative. The Oracle is presumed good, but is revealed to be a machine program.
As The Matrix‘s success on home video produced a fan base online that only the Star Wars franchise had rivaled, the Wachowskis and others around them began to conceive that it could cross media markets like Star Wars and Star Trek. In December 2001, video games publisher Interplay signed a $10 million deal to produce and find distribution for “Matrix” PC and online video games, including an MMO (massively multiplayer online) set in the Matrix-verse. “Enter the Matrix” a video game that the Wachowskis wrote 600 pages of material and shot about an hour of footage for, including the film actors and scenes that complete scenes that take place in the movies, would be released to coincide with the movies. Niobe is one of the main characters of the video game, where she has to go to a mail sorting facility, find a package and get it back to Zion. The Wachowskis had originally conceived it as a superhero comic book, and the first Matrix film was merely the origin story to an ongoing series where superpowered people exist.
The Matrix was a surprise smash that had such a unique mythos that it left the door wide open for a whole universe of possibilities should there be a market for sequels, spin-offs, and even novels if it comes to that. The problem is it’s difficult to live up to the original because the main reason why it is so vastly entertaining is because we were learning how it all worked, mesmerized by the possibility that the world we live in could be a complete fabrication. As that first film showed most of its cards, the action began to take hold for the final half hour, and although it is doubtlessly good action, the intrigue was dissipating and so was much of the luster.
So too, it would seem that any sequels have an uphill struggle because we come into them knowing what’s the what, so to make it viable, we will need a new spin, a new direction, or new development. The Matrix Reloaded splits the baby in half, so to speak, by giving us more, much more, of the action scenes we come to expect, while also introducing more of a romantic bent, and insights into the rebellion of Zion. However, the action suffers from over-saturation, and the different directions prove more to be missteps.
Keanu Reeves plays his part in mostly stoic fashion. It’s several months after the events of the first film, and the last remaining human city, the underground bunker called Zion, is building its forces for taking back the planet from the artificial intelligence that now dominates it. This same artificial intelligence has begun to dig in an effort to destroy Zion, and the resistance seems overwhelmed by the potential onslaught of 250,000 Sentinels. The plan is now hatched to send agents Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus back into the Matrix so that they may destroy the mainframe that controls it, but it’s not going to be easy, with the usual agents, a couple of ghosts, and hundreds of Agent Smiths who has developed the ability to replicate himself) on their tails.
If you’re coming into The Matrix Reloaded for eye-candy and amazing action pieces, you’re probably going to be blown away. The effects crew have pulled out all stops to deliver several impressively mounted scenes. One of these involves Neo battling not one but an ever-growing amount of Agent Smiths, who keeps replicating himself by taking over the bodies of others in order to battle Neo, but also to feed his hungry ego. The other is the very lengthy Los Angeles freeway scene, where the bullets fly fast and furious, cars tumble, and things explode.
If pure eyecandy is not your thing, these also represent two of the dumbest scenes in the film, and they comprise a third of the total running length. The Agent Smith scene serves little purpose beyond impressing us with visual effects. We’ve already established Neo can fly, so when he decides that he needs to fight a man who he already knows to have the capability of throwing as many of himself as he can at him, the obvious solution will have you almost screaming in your chair.
The freeway scene makes even less sense. As inured to crazy driving as Southern Californians may be these days, I refuse to believe that things have progressed to the point where men with machine guns, people fighting and flying around from vehicle to vehicle, and massive explosions are so commonplace that drivers are completely oblivious to what’s going on. While the combatants put on a spectacle that would shock and amaze the entire world, apparently everyone must be on their cell phones, bumping some serious bass, or otherwise too disengaged to care. Of course, like the Agent Smith scene, there needs to be lots of cars on the road, so throw logic out of the window and enjoy the pile-ups, crashes and ceaseless carnage set up solely for our visual pleasure.
The Merovingian and Persephone are hedonists who lack human emotion but want to experience it, to provoke emotions in others then feed off of it like vampires.
However, without these ridiculous scenes, The Matrix Reloaded would be a complete bore. Take for example the first half hour, set mostly in Zion, where we get to see the human race devolving into fashionable derelicts. Zion is about as awe-inspiring as a trip to Fraggle Rock, only a lot less fun. The people are flavorless, the drama is lifeless, and the only reason they seem to be showcased to highly is for the possible pitch to Showtime for a spin-off series, a la Stargate SG-1. And if you think the action scenes are excessive, wait until you see the drawn out love scene between Neo and Trinity, intercut with Zionites partying like it’s 1999.
An appeal of the original Matrix came from the allusions to literary sources, tie-ins to various philosophies and ways of thinking, and the Zen-like musings. Here, there’s a meeting with the Oracle, an exposition-heavy meeting with the Architect (of the Matrix), and sundry other dialogues, all meant to state that what you see is not what you really see, and what is going to happen isn’t what’s really going to happen. It becomes convoluted, clap trap that sounds deep and profound but doesn’t say much.
It’s a tough sell to put out two sequels to The Matrix that don’t have strict adherence to relating Neo’s story so much as to expant the Matrix-verse to include allusions to the internet comics, the animated shorts, the video games, hoping that the mythos would blow through all mediums the way he Star Trek and Star Wars franchises have. They’ve over-extended themselves with the Matrix sequel, turning in about five hours of material, and being as expensive as it is to make, they decided to split one film into two, making us pay twice to see the whole thing. It’s pure marketing genius, as the movie-going public, including myself, is going to spend the money both times to see this thing finally concluded in a few months time. In the meantime we were treated to part one, which is about as padded a film as there’s been of this magnitude.
In The Matrix human beings thought they were living out a rich and rewarding life, when in actual fact it was a hoax designed to lull them, while their bodies were being used as batteries to fuel the great machines. In our reality of 2003, we who love The Matrix flock in droves to see this rich and rewarding film series, only to be blinded to the fact that it too is a a mechaniam designed to use us, primarily for our money.
Qwipster’s Rating: C+
MPAA Rated: R for violence, language and sexuality
Running Time: 138 min.
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Harold Perrineau
Director: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Screenplay: Andy and Larry Wachowski