If you read my review of the Matrix Reloaded, you already know I loved the movie but I hated the flaws prevalent in them. It is unfair to generalize in a movie like this, so I have created side notes to give some detailed accounts of the best and worst of Matrix Reloaded. I only noted the most memorable ones. Please remember, this is a spoiler article.

The good -

• The story and plot: I like the whole idea of Neo having to make the choice between the destruction of Zion and saving Trinity. And the whole plot of the ripple effects it will have on the people of Zion and the change of patterns from the previous chosen ones. The hidden message of everyone not knowing the real truth is also the icing on the cake as we gear up for Revolutions (Matrix 3). I was very impressed with both the story and the plot; classic stuff.
• Special effects: some of the more amazing special effects are:
  A) The second fighting scene with Neo and the multiple agent Smiths. Something like this has never been done to this magnitude and was done very well done despite the fact that not all of it looked real.
  B The world of Zion: although there was nothing particularly interesting about Zion, the special effects were impressive as it was perfectly emulated.
  C) The way Neo gets ready to charge up and fly: When I saw this in the trailer, I almost cried.
  D) The highway chase scene (the best scene in the movie minus the music). High paced, dramatic, and action packed. If the music was up to snuff, it would've been perfect.
• Stunts: most all stunts were well done, when it wasn’t plastic man doing all the work (Ed: CGI human).

The bad -

• Special effects: while The ESC team got most things right, they couldn’t get a human CGI to look real. I won’t bother with the very quick or minor parts, but I will touch up on the two scenes that were bad:
  A) Near the beginning of the movie when we first see Morpheus and his crew enter Zion on foot, we see a guy (not sure who he is, but he looked Hispanic or black) manning a mecha type machine. For about a few seconds, we see his face with no movement; it looked like a real human at this point. But as soon as the mecha started to move, the effects looked fake. Had me fooled at first but the second he moved, it lost me...
  B) How about the part near the end of the highway scene when Morpheus and the key maker had to float in mid air to avoid the explosion of the two crashing trucks manned by the agents. The slow-mo scene with shots of Morpheus and the key maker floating in the air were obviously fake. You know what happens next? Neo grabs both of them while flying in midair and twirls up to avoid the blast like a jello like jelly fish! The explosion and environment was well done but Morpheus, the key maker and Neo all looked incredibly cartoon like. Yuck.
• Pacing: it’s obvious this move has no idea what tune to move at. The pacing was awkward at times, sometimes getting the audience revved up for action and cutting into complicated dialog too quickly, or showing long monotonous actions not knowing when to end:
  A) During the last battle of the film, Neo and Morpheus infiltrates the "main tower" in order to reach the access point to the mainframe. The action ensues as trinity attempts to turn off the power and Neo and Morpheus fight their way into the tower with the key maker. With Neo finally reaching the door, the action was getting pretty good, only to then treat the audience to a 10 minute long encrypted speech by the Architect. Not to say this was all bad, but that Architect speech brought me down at that point.
  B) How about the Zion party/dance sequence that lasted nearly 5 minutes longer than it should have. It was unnecessary and added nothing to the movie. I get it, they danced and have a good time nearly having sex while dancing... same thing I do when I go to the club. Go to the next scene please.
• Dialog: There was nothing specific about the dialog that was bad, but the philosophical talk took me out of the movie a bit. Ignoring it the second time as "character babble" made the movie better.
• Music - this has to be the weakest element of the movie. Again not all of it was bad, but none of it was particularly impressive (unlike the first movie's memorable and excellent tracks). The highway scene I regard as the worst; it reminded me of the Resident Evil (2002). If you compare the scenes in the trailer (which uses music from the original Matrix) with the actual movie you'll see a big difference. In fact the trailer seemed like a whole different movie altogether! Every time I saw the trailer on TV, I would say "damn that movie looks hot, I got to see it. Oh wait I already did!" See what I mean?

Fighting Scenes Evaluation

Fighting scenes they should keep -

1. Neo VS the 3 agents: undoubtedly the shortest fighting scene was also the. Clean, well executed and short, with minimal CGI use and good back ground music. It was awesome.
2. Neo VS multiple agent Smith: I know some of it looked fake, and some of it could have been trimmed to make it cleaner, but for most part the scene was incredible. The agents started looking fake at around 100 of them but at that time I didn't care couldn’t even tell the difference. Good stuff.
3. The first half Neo VS Merovingian's troops. I felt this scene, if cut in half would be much better. When Neo was at first fighting the troops hand to hand, it was not bad. But the minute Neo picked up a weapon, it was snore Ville from there. Reeves looked like he had bit of trouble with the weapons, so maybe it wasn’t his fault.

Fighting scenes they should cut -

1. Neo VS The Seraph. There was nothing bad about this sequence, but again nothing spectacular about it either. Neither Neo or the Seraph did anything in this scene to impress me, so perhaps it was weak because of the choreography (or lack or imagination).
2. The second half of Neo VS the Merovingian's troops: Like I said above, when Neo picked up the weapons, the scene got boring real quickly. Not to mention it was too long.
3. Morpheus VS the agent: Sorry Laurence Fishburn. I like your character and the effort was decent, but this scene was not nearly as impressive as anything you did in the original Matrix and pales in comparison to my favorite fighting scenes in this movie. By the time this scene came on the screen near the end of the movie, I was already tired of seeing combat.