The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
While finishing up The Matrix in 1999, the Wachowskis already had several ideas for a proposed trilogy. They weren’t sure whether the following two films should be sequels, prequels, or a combination—some ideas they’d used for comics on the film’s official website, whatisithematrix.com. The overwhelming international success of the DVD release ensured that Warner would demand sequels. In the meantime, Warner offered the Wachowskis the reins to their Batman franchise. The Wachowskis contemplated a trilogy reboot inspired by the Neal Adams “Batman” comics era they admired. For Bruce Wayne, they considered Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Guy Pearce. Ultimately, they politely declined the opportunity to direct Batman. Joel Schumacher had diminished the appeal of the film property. Instead, they preferred to continue with their more original and exciting comic book concept with The Matrix.
As the success of The Matrix on a home video created a fan base online that rivaled only the Star Wars franchise, the Wachowskis and their team began to envision its potential to cross-media markets like Star Wars and Star Trek. In December 2001, video game 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 universe. “Enter the Matrix,” a video game for which the Wachowskis wrote 600 pages of material and shot about an hour of footage with the film’s actors and scenes that complement the movies, was released to coincide with the film. The Wachowskis had game ideas stemming from their struggles to get the movie made at Warner Bros.; it was suggested that they create The Matrix as a game first and then adapt it into a film once it gained a following. An MMORPG, Matrix Online, was also in development. In the video game, Niobe is one of the main characters tasked with going to a mail sorting facility to find a package and return it to Zion. They also began discussions for a Matrix-based TV show. Initially, the Wachowskis conceived it as a superhero comic book, with the first Matrix film serving merely as the origin story for an ongoing series featuring superpowered individuals.
Since philosophy played a significant role in The Matrix, the Wachowskis collaborated with several academics who taught the subject to develop ideas for the sequels. Scholar Cornel West from Harvard and Princeton appears as Counselor West of the Zion Council, partly conceived with him in mind. The Wachowskis pursued West to appear in the film after enjoying his early philosophical works, such as “Prophesy Deliverance!” and “Race Matters.” West and Ken Wilber assisted the Wachowskis by providing commentary for their video releases when they could not do so themselves.
To ease the budget by avoiding the need to regroup and retrain the actors for martial arts, the Wachowskis decided to create the subsequent two films as a single sequel, dividing them into two parts and releasing them in theaters months apart. The back-to-back films were initially set for a 250-day shoot but took longer. A pending Screen Actors Guild strike led the production to opt for filming second-unit direction first, then take a break for a few months before resuming in Sydney, Australia. The production explored Cleveland, Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, and Toronto locations.
Since the Wachowskis couldn’t find a suitable stretch of freeway to evoke the desired sense of impending doom, they opted for a decommissioned naval base in Alameda to construct a two-mile loop freeway for $300,000 per quarter-mile for a car chase sequence, totaling $2.5 million. After seven weeks of shooting, the construction crew became frustrated, thinking the project was madness. Nevertheless, the Wachowskis believed it was essential to maintain control over the sequence and ensure the privacy of the film. After filming, they reportedly dismantled it and donated the materials for low-income housing projects in Mexico.
A scene in Zion was initially scripted for the conclusion of the first Matrix screenplay, but it was cut due to an excess of story and costs. The Zion sequences required around 900 extras to portray some of the 200,000 residents of the vast city. The set was mainly built from styrofoam, with urethane foam painted over it to create a realistic limestone appearance. The Wachowskis aimed for an organic look, envisioning it as a place of birth within Mother Nature, like a womb. However, they wanted it to be bright and warm instead of dank and cold, so they created lava pits to illuminate and warm the environment. They also wanted it to feel like a sacred mecca, prompting the effects team to design high ceilings reminiscent of a cathedral, complete with temple-like pillars.
To prevent spoilers from spreading on internet forums, the Wachowskis only provided the script to a few. Actors were asked to sign without reading the script, and many top Warner Bros. executives could see it despite funding the film and making production decisions.
The original plan was to release both films in the summer of 2003. However, Warner Bros. executives hesitated due to concerns that their theatrical releases might overlap, leading to confusion and lost revenue. They decided to allow a six-month gap for the home video release of Reloaded before moving on to Revolutions, which was postponed to November. The original titles were “Matrix 2” and “Matrix 3.” They intended to release “Matrix 2” for Christmas 2002 and “Matrix 3” in the summer of 2003. Ultimately, the Wachowskis chose the title “The Matrix Reloaded” for the sequel.
Keanu Reeves signed a $20 million (or $30 million) contract to star in the second and third films and backend money (15% of the gross) that could earn him up to $100 million. He was eager to participate in the sequels because he felt connected to his character and recognized his importance in the story. He appreciated that the script appeared more ambitious and that his character was better developed.
The Wachowskis want to include Jet Li in their yet-to-be-scripted film to play a character named Seraph, a role initially intended for Michelle Yeoh (who couldn’t participate due to a scheduling conflict with The Touch, her first film with her new production company). However, there were budgetary concerns about bringing in another major star. They declined Li’s interest when he requested $13 million instead of the $3 million offered for the 11-month shoot. Li was concerned that allowing the crew to film and digitize his moves over several months would give them the rights to use his signature style digitally, and he wanted to protect his intellectual property to ensure future filmmakers didn’t replicate his recorded moves with other actors’ faces. Li argued that he was getting older, which meant he couldn’t replicate the moves he performed that day, unlike computer experts who might be able to use his recorded movements in the future. Ultimately, the role went to the significantly less expensive Collin Chou.
Grammy-nominated singer Aaliyah was initially cast in the role of Zee but tragically died in a plane crash in August 2001. The Wachowskis struggled with the decision to eliminate the role, ultimately deciding that the character was too important, so they chose to recast it. After briefly considering other actresses on short notice, including Eva Mendes, it was announced in April 2002 that singer-actress Nona Gaye, daughter of Marvin Gaye, would take on the role. Another loss came shortly after, as Gloria Foster, who reprised her role as the Oracle, passed away due to complications from diabetes. The filmmakers deliberated on whether to eliminate her character or recast the role for the third installment, ultimately opting for the latter.
Jada Pinkett Smith was a finalist for Trinity in 1999’s The Matrix; however, the Wachowskis felt she lacked romantic chemistry with Keanu Reeves. They cast her in the sequels as Niobe, who is skeptical about Neo being “The One.” At one point, Pinkett worked on a song intended for the film’s soundtrack but struggled to feel comfortable.
The character of Link was created as a replacement for Tank, who survived the first Matrix film. This situation arose from a salary dispute with Tank’s actor, Marcus Chong. Shortly after the release of Matrix Reloaded, Chong sued Warner Bros. and its parent company, AOL, claiming he wasn’t treated equally as a Screen Actors Guild member. He referenced a 1998 verbal agreement and a 2000 contract that ensured his character would continue and not be replaced in the sequels; however, he lost the case because the character was written to be killed off between movies, while Link was introduced as a new character to pilot the Nebuchadnezzar, played by Harold Perrineau Jr. Chong also claimed further damages due to being labeled a terrorist, which he alleged led to him being blackballed in Hollywood from future roles. It is worth noting that Chong was arrested in 2000 after making threatening phone calls to the studio when salary negotiations began to break down. Reportedly, Chong sought a million dollars to appear in the sequels, hoping to benefit from the exposure of his higher-profile co-stars at press junkets and premiere galas. At the same time, Warner Bros. only offered up to $400,000. Chong alleges that Warner intended to starve him into accepting a bad contract.
After providing a one-paragraph synopsis of a scene for his audition, Clayton Watson was cast as The Kid’s character. The Wachowskis reviewed hundreds of actors for the role and sought individuals who brought something extraordinary and unique to the character based on the brief description.
The Architect role was created with Sean Connery in mind. Connery was also one of the actors considered for Morpheus, but in both instances, he declined the roles because the scripts did not make sense to him.
Training took place from Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5 pm, in a warehouse located in Santa Monica. The exceptional martial arts choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping returned to oversee the training and choreography. More advanced wire work would enable backflips and cartwheels to be performed in a single fluid shot. Additionally, there would be more kicks and even some flying involved. Instead of battling one opponent at a time, they would engage multiple opponents, requiring quicker choreography and making each punch and kick land with enough force to take them down.
Furthermore, Neo can now fly, adding to the demand for fluid complexity. Reeves and Moss both sustained injuries during their training. Moss bruised her knee after twisting it improperly, which required her to use crutches for six weeks. During this time, she focused on strengthening her upper body. Reeves experienced pain in his left ankle; although an MRI and X-ray revealed no issues, he was advised to wear a cast as a precaution. Occasionally, Reeves would immerse his body in an ice bath to relieve the pain.
Due to a strike scheduled to begin on June 30, the Wachowskis planned to move production from Australia to San Francisco, where they would focus on special effects before returning to Australia to finish the films once the strike concluded. Ultimately, the strike was averted.
Over 2,500 visual effects shots needed to be rendered, more than six times the amount in the original film. The 17-minute battle featuring Neo against an army of Agent Smiths called the “Burly Brawl” was predominantly crafted using computer technology. The Wachowskis felt frustrated by how many filmmakers successfully copied their work with Bullet-Time in The Matrix, leading them to create elements that would be impossible to replicate—setting the bar so high that others couldn’t even see it to attempt to reach it. They aimed to create a scene that would be unattainable through wire choreography, making it challenging for any other film to duplicate, unlike the ‘bullet time’ sequence from The Matrix. This scene alone cost $40 million to produce, making it the most expensive fight sequence ever created, even to this day.
Agent Smith is now a rogue program, directly disconnected from the Matrix, which is why he is causing chaos. He can replicate himself, rewriting the script for the Matrix program much like a highly skilled human hacker might. He has experienced human emotion and developed a need for self-preservation. He enjoys feeling that he has a choice and will consume anything to gain more power to sustain himself.
Supposedly, Matrix Reloaded begins only three days after the first film ends. Neo’s wardrobe exudes more confidence, while Trinity has fallen in love, so more of her feminity emerges.
Keanu also needed to take time off to attend his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Syme’s funeral, who died tragically in a car accident about a year after they lost their daughter. After she left for England again, Keanu flew Hollywood friends to Australia to spend time with him and keep boredom at bay. He also turned to drinking lots of vodka and whiskey, as well as finding new women to spend the evenings with, including an English former newswoman named Rachel Jones.
Reeves shocked the stunt team members who portrayed the non-CG Agent Smiths in the Burly Brawl by gifting each a brand-new Harley Davidson motorcycle. He felt they deserved a more substantial gesture of gratitude for risking their safety whenever he requested a new take.
It debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2003.
The first Matrix was more straightforward: Machines were terrible, and humanity was good. With Reloaded, the Wachowskis subvert The Matrix by questioning hero narratives by saying it’s all relative, just as goodness in humans is relative. The Oracle is presumed to be a heroic entity for humans but is revealed to be a machine program. Neo is informed that the One is a recurring glitch that the system recognizes and has taken steps to address. Ultimately, he faces the choice of reloading the Matrix and repeating the cycle, like all previous Ones or allowing the entire system to crash and bring about humanity’s end. Neo decides to take a unique approach to avoid perpetuating a system he vows to oppose, which is to attempt to make peace with the machines. Several scripted scenes were filmed but ultimately cut before the theatrical release, portraying Neo as the sixth iteration of “The One” identified by Morpheus. All five previous Ones perished while trying to confront an Agent. Morpheus acknowledges that he had believed he could designate anyone as The One, and they would fulfill that role. However, with Neo, he genuinely thought he was The One this time. The sequels see the Wachowskis revisiting the concept of five prior incarnations of The One before Neo. Still, they were not false and existed in earlier versions of The Matrix.
The Wachowskis intentionally chose not to give interviews so that their comments about the films wouldn’t become dogma; they wanted the audience to generate their interpretations instead of relying on their explanations. They crafted the movie to provoke questions rather than provide answers. Questions such as: What is reality? What does it mean to be human? Does God exist? By offering answers, they would confine the discussion to a narrow perspective rather than allow for a broad range of interpretations, similar to how we have diverse views on reality, humanity, and religion.
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 challenging to live up to the original because the main reason why it is so vastly entertaining is that 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, 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, direction, or 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 are missteps.
Keanu Reeves plays his part mostly in a stoic fashion. Several months after the events of the first film, and the last remaining human city, the underground bunker called Zion, is building its forces to take back the planet from the artificial intelligence that now dominates it. This same artificial intelligence has begun to dig 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 have developed the ability to replicate himself) on their tails.
You’ll probably be blown away if you’re coming into The Matrix Reloaded for eye candy and amazing action pieces. The effects crew has pulled out all the stops to deliver several impressively mounted scenes. One of these involves Neo battling not one but an ever-growing number of Agent Smiths, who keep replicating themselves by taking over the bodies of others to battle Neo and 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.
Many involved behind the scenes, some who worked on The Matrix, state that morale was very low while working on the sequels. There were extreme expectations, and the material was less interesting and more confusing, especially since the Wachowskis were tight-lipped about giving insight or information on what they were striving to achieve. They had read a book on Stanly Kubrick where he is quoted saying that he did multiple takes of scenes because he felt that actors didn’t give natural performances until they ran through the same situation enough times that they could do it without thinking, which the Wachwskis decided to employ on the sequels, much to the consternation of cast and crew.
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