Matrix: Reloaded

Pretty fuckin' cool.

The movie starts, happens, and ends in the Matrix, where a young Indian girl named Jesminder ("Call me Jess") Bhamra has rewritten herself into a World Cup game, scoring England's winning goal next to her idol, David Beckham. Is this a new Neo? As we soon learn, she is not that powerful. Her wish-fulfillment abruptly goes awry during a section in which several British sportcasters dish about Jess with her upset mother, who wants her daughter to marry well and become a solicitor. Then, of course, the Matrix is rewritten further and Jess is no longer playing football at all, merely engrossed in a game on the telly.

Is Jess' mother actually an Agent, capable of rewriting reality to her own will? The movie deals with Jess' continual efforts to subvert the will of her parents (by running off to football games when she's supposed to be at her sister's gloriously-rendered Indian wedding, for example).

The Wachowskis really play with the idea that Jess may be as or more powerful than The One (Keanu Reeves). In fact, in what must be one of the best-kept secrets in film history, this second film of the trilogy doesn't even refer to the Matrix or acknowledge the existence of Neo, Morpheus, Zion, or any of the other elements from the first film. They trust the viewers to follow along with Jess' adventures in good faith. The wire fu is more subtle, more cunning in this film; when Jess proves that she truly can "bend" the ball by scoring the winning goal in the final match, we know that she has mastered the Matrix, but she still has to learn of its nature. Only when Jess and her friend Jules, flying off to live their dream of playing football professionally, freeze-frame in the last moments of the film do we realize that having mastered Reality, they will now be shown "the way" in the Matrix: Revolutions.

By focusing the second film of their trilogy on completely different elements, the brothers W. have laid the groundwork for an amazing meeting of minds in the third film, due in November. Sure, Jess has subverted the programming of her Agent parents, but what will happen when they, Agent Smith, and the entire Arsenal football squad lay ambush to Neo and his team?

I'm excited to find out.