Action movies do not normally carry any great burdens of expectation. You put down your money and either get value for it or not. Nobody expects any significant experiences to emerge from viewing it. But along comes the odd film that gives you a rollicking good time and provokes the processes of ideation too. Such films are rare which is why they instantly become cults - the Star Wars saga, Blade Runner, the Aliens series and, when it was released to breathtaking effectiveness, The Matrix. Now here comes the sequel, with more money spent on it than Waterworld perhaps, and you wonder what happened? A damper squib than The Matrix Reloaded is difficult to conceive - unless it is Attack of the Clones.

All action films reach the brain via the viscera first. Unless your reptilian brain feels furiously excited, unless you are engaged at a pure adrenalin release to vicariously participate in the mayhem, you will never make the transition to wondering What It All Means. When the film is part of the Matrix Mythology, staking claim to a unique blend of philosophizing about the nature of reality with kicking ass, more is expected. Unfortunately the Wachowski siblings do not manage to top themselves, and, indeed, have fallen so far below their standards it is a calamity. There is perhaps some sort of unintended meaning to their legendary contractual clause that they do not have to do publicity for the films; it seems to argue remoteness from the work and craft that is becoming evident. Reloaded feels like it was never looked at through a camera lens but only on a computer screen, with all directions being given via cell-phone instead of on the set.

It is difficult to understand why. The absolutely stunning dynamism, the sheer fierce velocity, of the first part could not have been so draining that they lost all creative energies. Reloaded has everything to make it work and just one flaw that ruins it. It is skillfully mounted, well photographed, choreographed to a level of polish that is blinding, but there is no rhythm or timing. The ensuing violence has a leaden quality to it. The action never amplifies character, drama or conflict; it is there because it is the Matrix sequel and it is obligatory. The movie has stumbled badly in its editing; the timing is terrible where it was adroit and spectacular in the first. No sense of rhythm is ever established, and the zigzag between normal time and 'bullet time' slow motion that made the first film such a hugely exciting spectacle is completely flat-footed here. Instead of smoothly blending into each other they manage to interrupt whatever rhythm may be developing. The insane ambition of the movie is to stage the greatest mano-a-mano and chase sequences ever put on film. At the drawing board stage everything must have looked perfect, on screen it doesn't work and quite frankly, becomes boring.

It is not, as many people seem to think, because we have seen it before. We saw it before in Die Hard, Under Siege and The Terminator but with the right mix and the right rhythm the audience has a great time yet once again. A mere forty seconds into Reloaded and you know that movie magic is not going to happen. The great introduction to the realities of the Matrix in the opening sequence of the first film is recapitulated here; once again Trinity is in a building full of cops and spreading mayhem. Everything is bigger, louder and more explosive; Trinity fights with a much meaner streak than shown previously but it simply does not draw you in. When she goes out of a skyscraper window with about a million shards of glass and an Agent in her wake, it should have had the audience gasping. It does nothing because there is no real emotion involved, only blue screen and wirework.

This time round the logical flaws are more obvious. Why for instance don't they wear Kevlar or some other sort of bulletproofing if the laws of the Matrix follow those of the world as it used to be in the 1990s? Why get shot? Where does Trinity carry two mini-Uzi's in her Catwoman suit? She seems to pull them out of some alternate dimension, like the Bloodsport character in Superman comics. How does she miss hitting her target while spraying both guns all over a small room while the Agent makes a heart shot with a Desert Eagle while falling down the side of a high rise? Such obvious blunders were not present in the previous venture and seem to indicate some sort of disdain for details.

What really upsets is the lack of mythic resonance. The Matrix was a full-blooded myth, diamond like in its purity and elegance. Reloaded is a big summer movie trying to simulate a mythic narrative and it's not a pretty sight. When it begins Neo is having nightmares about the death of Trinity. He is now granted glimpses into the future, and he does not like it, any more than he likes his new abilities to fly like Superman and wallop hordes of agents at a time. This is not a Hero wracked with self-doubt and unable to comprehend the burden Fate has thrust upon him - the problem with Neo is that he is a dork. We had our suspicions in the previous movie but it is only too clear now. He is the most powerful being in the Matrix, and instead of coming to terms to with that he mopes around like a whiskey priest. He even switches his leather coat for a priestly frock coat, which represents his supposedly spiritual abilities.

It could have been a great essay in a theme rarely touched upon in myth. What does the Hero do when he returns to his people with his newfound abilities and finds them treating him with reverence and awe but no consideration for the fact that he is still only human? The only people who seem to get this are the Agents and it may be no coincidence Neo seems to have the warmest, politest relationships with them. When Humans approach him, bearing baskets of offerings as though he is the tribal idol, Neo merely freezes. He finds this adoration of the faithful an intolerable agony and his only escape seems to be to jump Trinity's bones. By the way, when the ship is outside Zion, last human city on earth, is there a no sex rule operating or something? Everybody seems to get off the docking hangar and run to the first secluded spot where they can make the beast with two backs. Why also does the ship Nebuchadnezzar require a crew complement of only four now, where it used to have many more?

It is just one of the many illogical issues left hanging fire in a movie that does not deign to explain anything at all. It is presumed you know what happened before, know what is the Matrix and how it works, and know who the people are. None of which are unreasonable assumptions actually. Now we are finally shown Zion, the city near the core of the earth, the only place with enough heat to keep the humans alive. The machines that dominate the planet are digging under the earth to get to the humans. Morpheus is pinning his hopes on Neo to save them, but the city's commander wants him arrested and the others in the city do not know what to think or feel. There is some thing grotesquely improbable about this underground city business. If the entire planet is covered with the dark skies caused by nuclear weapons (so that the machines have no source of power, which they bypass by converting humans into dreaming, organic batteries in suspended animation), if that darkness is real, then all life is over. Living things are dependent upon photosynthesis; either primarily, or at many removes depending upon their place in the food chain. Beyond a few weeks Life cannot endure without sunlight, no matter the heat from the earth's core. It was something that should have been caught in the first movie but we were all too busy having a good time to notice.

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