I have feeling that the Wachowskis' are planning a surprise where this apparently fatal error will be explained away. At least the movie concludes on such a note. In between, we have Neo moping because the Oracle has not contacted him for a while and the spectacle of Agent Smith able to transform anybody he stabs in the solar plexus into an identical version of himself. It is one of the few genuinely surprising moments in the film. Smith turns out to be a program turned rogue, no longer compelled to do the bidding of the Matrix. In one extremely shocking twist, the Oracle is revealed to be a rogue program too hiding in exile to resist deletion, complete with a personal martial artist bodyguard program. Her advice to Neo is, if possible, even more incomprehensible than the last time round. The movie is perilously close to casting the Oracle as a villain cynically manipulating the humans. If it turns out to be the case it will be as unconscionable a demonizing of a great character as making Hal Jordan turn villain. In trying to widen the parameters of the Matrix the directors are being disloyal to their own rules.

Morpheus continues to mumble out his belief in the One and the prophecy that goes along with it. It gets slightly confusing, for in another galaxy far, far away another tall, black, bald mentor is mumbling about a prophecy of the One who will bring balance to the Matrix, sorry the Force. What is going on here? The zillion movies that the directors have seen are now spilling over into their characters as imitation, not quotation. Morpheus is still nominally the Alpha male, hyper cool and with the perfect composure of self-knowledge. This time he carries a handgun with extended magazine as well as a Katana no less, though I fear it is echoing Mace Windu's purple light saber. His fights are about the only aspect that looks real though the fatal lack of rhythm remains. When he slices a car and overturns it, so that he can shoot up the exposed fuel tank, it should be one of the great action sequences of all time. It simply does not convey the excitement it should. Fishbourne cannot look like a dork even if he tries, but he comes close sometimes in the movie's evident puzzlement as to what to do with him.

Carrie Ann-Moss looks tired and wan as Trinity as though the burden of loving Neo was finally getting on her nerves. She is a game actress and does her best to hold her end up. New characters flit in with no depth to their characterization; they signed up because they wanted to be part of the myth of the Matrix. What on earth is Jada Pinkett Smith doing and what sense does her role make? She abandons Morpheus for a stiff because she has differences with him about his belief in the Oracle and then she goes rushing to help him as soon as that belief lands him in trouble. Perhaps the next movie will give her some weight. There is a new villain, a sentient program that is a sort of uber-mafia-entreprenuer, impossibly elegant, sipping rare wine, preaching Causality as a belief system and given to idiotic pranks like slipping aphrodisiac cake to his guests. He is routinely unfaithful to his amazingly beautiful wife and we wonder if he can be so smart after all. She is called Persephone, goddess of the harvest, which would make him her captor Hades, Lord of the Underworld. They are working the mythic resonance hard here, and for once there is something to it.

Persephone is the sort of 'dame', who, as the great Raymond Chandler said, could make a Bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. She is portrayed as curiously helpless in front of her husband, a ridiculous situation as she could make Obi Wan Kenobi turn to the Dark Side if she was so minded. She helps the heroes find and rescue a Keymaker, some sort of hyper-rogue program that is needed to shut down the source of the Matrix. Persephone's betrayal seems to come from no better reason than petty spite and a jealous approval of the love between Neo and Trinity. True to her name Persephone warns them that such love cannot endure; it is a good mythic theme, the jealousy of the gods is always roused by too perfect a love. This is supposed to deepen Neo's sense of foreboding except for the fact that we have no reason to infer Neo and Trinity are in love, there is nothing on screen to suggest it, except directorial decree.

Many, many tedious fights and speeches later Neo finally enters the Source of the Matrix and confronts a being who declares he is the Architect of the entire system. He is supposed to exist on a floor with no elevators or even steps to it, a sort of magical level where the soul of the demon resides in fairy tales. The story becomes impossibly dense now. It is one thing to expect an audience to bring their brains along. It is quite another to gratuitously complicate matters and then have about a thousand distracting TV screens flicker with images while the explanations are going on. If it is a ploy to get people in for multiple viewings it wont work. From what I could make out, the Matrix is more ancient than anybody can comprehend, and the One is a necessary and vital Anomaly in the entire grid of programs that allow the Matrix to function dynamically. Each time the One is awakened to his powers, he is guided to meet the Source in a vast feedback loop that smashes the Matrix and destroys Zion. A few humans are allowed to survive, rebuild Zion and then provide the living batteries for the machines. 12 females and 7 males for some reason, the machines do not want any neat ménage-a-trios developing apparently. At least I think that is what the Source said, only the Wachowskis know for sure.

Neo refuses to go along with this eternal loop, flies like Superman (the sonic boom in his wake is surely killing people given the destruction he is shown causing, and he is the savoir?) and prevents a shot Trinity from hitting the ground and dying. Zion seems to have been betrayed and fallen while Neo performs some nifty psychic surgery and not only extracts bullets but also restarts Trinity's heart. As the movie closes on a deliberate down note, Neo finds he can sense the hunter killer machines , the Sentinels, and what is more he can stop them by willing it just as he stops bullets in the Matrix. The force of the experience puts him in a coma and the survivors are huddled in ships that will soon lose power, so there will be enough interest for the third section of the Matrix. It leaves some obvious puzzles, which only make the narrative even more migraine inducing.

If Neo can feel the machines in his head does that mean that Reality as they know it is just another sophisticated version of the Matrix and they are all still plugged in? It would explain a lot, and also take care of the no sunlight problem. In any case the movie is becoming more and more like a video fight game so why should not what they believe in be another level of delusion? Unless Neo has become a God, which would be really pushing it, not to mention a cop out of the Deux Ex Machina variety. I guess we are supposed to wait with bated breath to see how it all untangles. It may be doubtful if it will be worth it. On current evidence the Matrix may be Reloaded but it is firing blanks.

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