Review by Jay Pinkerton

View All Six Hundred and Eleven of These Trailers

In the time since The Trailer Trash reviewed the super-mega-official-big Matrix Reloaded trailer several weeks ago, the good people at Warner Brothers got together and decided the 40 minute-long preview clearly wasn't enough. Since then theaters, television and the internet have been inundated with the 'Short Story' trailer, 'Jack In' trailer, 'Nice Trick' trailer, 'Story' trailer, 'No Escape' trailer, 'I'm In' trailer and 'Prophecy' trailer, in addition to the existing Superbowl trailer, full-length cinematic trailer, teaser Trailer and Japanese trailers available for immediate download at the official site.

The reasoning behind this "shock and awe" trailer blitz isn't entirely clear — some theorize that Warner Brothers simply had a big crush on Hugo Weaving, while others are convinced the strategy here is to slowly consume all other media on the planet, until the only thing left to watch are Matrix Reloaded commercials. Either way, there now exist enough trailers currently online that their collected running time actually shows the entire feature film five and a half times over. Conceivably, someone could take these trailers and splice together Matrix Reloaded. Those of you unwilling to wait until the May 15th premiere are in luck — because The Trailer Trash has done just that.

After a solid Saturday's splice-work, I had my own premiere this past Sunday for The Matrix Reloaded in The Trailer Trash's head office (my sparsely decorated bachelor apartment). I'd invited the entire writing staff of The Trailer Trash — or WriteForce MegaSquad, as I preferred to call them until they got together and signed a petition forcing me to stop.

After everybody had gotten a lawn chair and gathered around my computer monitor, I pressed play on my spliced version and we watched a viewing, entire days before anybody else would get the chance, of The Matrix Reloaded. (Warning: spoilers ahead!)

The Matrix Reloaded begins with the now-classic shot of the Warner Brothers logo. I'm happy to say the film simply doesn't let up the pace from there. Almost immediately, the Village Roadshow logo also flies directly at us — Whoa! — ramping up the action to breakneck speeds.

Just when we're completely spent from both the logos and thinking we couldn't possibly take any more action, the Matrix Reloaded logo itself appears, followed by credits listing the actors appearing in the movie — each credit more explanatory than the last. This is the kind of stuff we've come to expect from the Matrix series, of course, but it still kicked my ass watching it.

"Wow," I say to everyone. "That totally kicked my ass all over the place," I then stand up to go.

"Where the hell are you going?" asks Pete, staring at me. "This is your apartment. Besides, we've barely made it past the credits."

"Good lord, it keeps going?" I say, in shock. "But I'm already exhausted!" And I am, in fact, totally exhausted.

"Dude, they were just credits."

"Yeah, but..." I pause, unable to find the right words, and sit back down again. The Wachowski brothers must be amazing or something, I think. Then I think this might not be enough.

"The Wachowski brothers must be amazing or something," I say. Since I have a mouth full of popcorn, though, it comes out unintelligible.

"Would you stop babbling?" snaps Sean. "The movie's started." And so it had.

The Matrix Reloaded opens with Trinity (Carrie-Ann moss) and a Chinese man (Pat Morita) flying through traffic on a motorcycle. They dodge past oncoming cars, racing frantically towards an unknown destination— but where? And why? Before we can find out, Trinity launches her bike into space. The bike then explodes, taking her and the Chinese man with it. A devastatingly powerful way to open Reloaded, Trinity's grisly, heart-wrenching suicide should leave audience members reeling in their seats. Why would she do something like that? Well, obviously because she was depressed... but why was she depressed?

Questions spiraling through our brains, we are suddenly greeted with the image of a single mysterious foot. But whose? A mystery. It looks like a smaller foot, probably a size 8. Now, we have to ask ourselves: who in the last film had smaller feet? The sharper tacks among you, I'm sure, have already put two and two together on this one. The rest of you, unfortunately, will just have to wait for the action-packed conclusion.

Back on the highway, it looks like Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) has got troubles of his own. Having just watched Trinity take her own life, he must push away his first instinct to cry, and pull up his second instinct: to fight. But where will he fight? Morpheus answers this question by diving at an oncoming truck, then flipping himself up onto it. Looks like we're about have ourselves a little old truck-fight, folks.

"Are you sure you put this in the right order?" asks Justin, watching the computer screen with confusion.

"Of course I did," I say, rolling my eyes. "You just have to pay attention. It's not like any of this is difficult. Just watch, this next part is the best part of all the parts."

Back to the truck-fight. "Here we go," says Morpheus to one of the nefarious Agents who patrol the Matrix.

"Should we proceed?" one of the Agents asks another. "Of course," the Agent replies. "After all, he is only human."

Angered by this, Morpheus rips off his sunglasses, as if to say: could a mere human do this? Realizing that they've been made to look like fools, the Agents attack. One of the Agents begins battling with Morpheus on top of the truck, while the other two mysteriously disappear.

We cut to a man at a network of computers. "He's doin' his Superman thing," he says incredulously, and it's true. The Agent fighting Morpheus looks suspiciously like Superman.

The two fight like for what seem like hours, especially if you slow the scene down to ultra slo-mo, as I have. After some truly amazing kung fu action, the Agent finally gets the upper hand and closes in for the kill. Morpheus looks like he's done for. Suddenly, he reaches down deep inside himself for the strength to fight this enemy, and visualizes an image of great inspiration, giving him the power he needs to keep fighting: Neo and Trinity having sex, while a million Agent Smiths watch. Morpheus suddenly bursts forward with the strength of a cannonball, punching through the Agent and causing another devastating explosion.

Soon after—

Oh, come on," interrupts Sean. "We already saw that explosion clip like five minutes ago. This is retarded."

"Kind sir, thou dost wound me," I say. "I can't believe you're questioning my grasp of story structure."

"Don't start doing that 18th century English dandy thing," Sean responds, who knows me too well. (When I feel threatened, I tend to talk like a gentle-man of leisure from the Restoration period. The strategy is to distract my enemies through foppishness and a gadabout air. It has yet to prove effective once.)

"I think you spliced this together wrong," agrees Pete, who I decide on the spot to rename Judas. "The movie should be able to make sense without you narrating the entire thing." He even looks like Judas. The Judas.

"Guys, trust me," I assure them. "It's supposed to start really suspenseful. It all makes sense in like ten minutes, I promise." Actually it doesn't, but I want them to hang in there for the complete five hour running time so they can see the big surprise ending. I take the movie off pause and we rejoin the action.

Soon after, we cut to a cruise ship with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Horatio Sans. They've been notified of Trinity's suicide and are inconsolable. Luckily Neo (Keanu Reeves) flies to the scene just in time.

Together, they realize they've somehow boarded a gay cruise ship — but who could possibly be behind it? (As the audience already knows, the Agents wanted Neo out of the way while they attacked Morpheus, and so used the gay cruise ship Nebboonezzer we saw from the first film. But Neo doesn't know this yet.)

Meanwhile, the mysterious figure with the size 8 shoes reveals himself to be...

Trinity! Neo and Horatio Sans are shocked! Trinity explains that she managed to time travel back in time to the cruise ship just before impact, and that—

"That's it, I'm leaving," says Sean, getting up. While I silently rename him Judas #2, everybody else also gets up to leave.

"What? Judases! I name you all Judas! Give me back my popcorn!" I say, grabbing my popcorn back. The door slams behind them.

I know what you're thinking: They gave up a chance to see The Matrix Reloaded before anyone else? I was puzzled too. But there's no accounting for taste, I suppose. I take the film off pause, and watch as Neo beats up a hundred Agent Smiths aboard the gay cruise ship, while Aragorn, Trinity and Legolas run through Middle Earth looking for their lost friends, the Oracle and Pippin.

I'd tell you more, but it looks like you'll just have to wait for May 15th.