7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.9 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and the rest of their crew continue to battle the machines that have enslaved the human race in the Matrix. Now, more humans are waking up out of the matrix and attempting to live in the real world. As their numbers grow, the battle moves to Zion, the last real-world city and center of human resistance.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett SmithAction | 100% |
Adventure | 79% |
Sci-Fi | 68% |
Thriller | 52% |
Epic | 46% |
Martial arts | 25% |
Surreal | 21% |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1
Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Russian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Turkish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
Spanish=Castillian 5.1 and Latin 2.0; Japanese is hidden
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Thai, Turkish
Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
Digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
After its breathtaking 4K revival
of The
Matrix earlier this year, it was inevitable that Warner
Brothers would also release the two disappointing sequels on UHD. Confirmed fans could be
expected to buy the entire trilogy, if only for the sake of completeness, and having assembled the
A-plus team of DP Bill Pope and MPI colorist extraordinaire Jan Yarbrough to regrade the varied
palettes of Neo's initial outing in HDR and Dolby Vision, why not have them complete the
hero's journey to its final, Christ-like destination? Warner is now releasing both of the
Wachowskis' sequels on UHD, as well as a three-film
set for those who held off purchasing the
original film, sagely anticipating that additional titles were just around the corner.
Messrs. Pope and Yarbrough have done the same stellar work on the imagery of both Reloaded
and Matrix Revolutions
that we have
already seen in their handling of the first film, and the
trilogy's original sound team has done a similarly creditable job in remixing the aggressive
soundtracks for Dolby Atmos. Unfortunately, after the technical crews completed their work, it
was turned over to the same species of clueless Warner executive who assembled the botched
package for the Blade
Runner UHD.
Whatever you do, hold onto your existing Blu-rays. While
the UHD iterations of the two Matrix sequels are worthy representatives of the format—whatever
one may think of their quality as films—unless this is your first time buying The Matrix sequels
on Blu-ray, you can take the two 1080p discs in each three-disc set and use them as coasters.
Screenshots accompanying this review are taken from the remastered 1080p standard Blu-ray.
While these images give some sense of the 4K disc's appearance, they cannot hope to represent
its visual subtlety.
According to information provided to me by a Warner Brothers source, this 2160p,
HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD of The Matrix Reloaded is based on a new 4K scan of the original
camera negative created by Warner's Motion Picture Imaging facility. Color correction and HDR
grading were performed by MPI's senior colorist, Jan Yarbrough, and overseen by Bill Pope,
director of photography on all three Matrix films. Reproduced below is the statement from Mr.
Yarbrough regarding the first Matrix film,
which was previously provided by the studio and
(again, according to a Warner Brothers source) applies equally to the two sequels:
The Wachowskis have entrusted the creation of the HDR mastering with the original Director of Photography Bill Pope, ASC. Working with Bill I have come to realize that he has a full understanding and appreciation for the dynamics of the HDR format. The Matrix is created in two worlds: the "real" world in cool blue tones; and the "data" world in ever present green. Now with HDR, this film can be viewed in its futuristic and data centric realm more accurately than previous formats would allow. HDR with its huge dynamic range of luminance and color gamut allows for a true film gamma replication while adding additional dynamic range for accurate highlights and deep detailed blacks. DP Bill Pope has taken advantage of this to create a version with color timing as it was originally intended, crafting a high resolution digital master that is more accurate than the original theatrical release.
Let's begin with the stupid disc authoring, which was already evident on the 4K disc of The
Matrix but is now becoming an alarmingly established practice at Warner Brothers. You have to
wonder whether the executives in charge of these projects actually play UHD discs, or if these
titles are just more "product" on their balance sheets.
In the early days of Blu-ray, when lossless audio was a relatively new phenomenon, Warner
opted to have its Blu-ray discs default to a lossy Dolby Digital track that would play on pretty
much any variety of equipment that existed in 2006. If the disc happened to offer lossless
audio—Warner preferred Dolby TrueHD in those days—you had to make a point of selecting it.
This was particularly problematic with Warner's early Blu-rays, because they began playing the main
feature immediately. You had to select the popup menu and switch tracks mid-film at whatever
point you remembered (or realized) that you were hearing an inferior sound presentation. It's
worth stressing that Warner was the only major studio to implement this design; Blu-rays from
every other studio defaulted to lossless audio, and people somehow managed to play them
without issue (probably because the lossless formats were designed to be backward-compatible,
as is Dolby Atmos).
Well, at Warner Home Video, it's 2006 all over again. Each of the three Matrix films defaults to
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1, and the only advance from the early days is that the discs start with a
menu instead of immediately playing the feature. But if you don't remember to cursor over to the
"Audio" section and change the soundtrack, you won't get the new Dolby Atmos mix. This
anachronistic authoring choice—and make no mistake; it's a choice—applies to both the UHD
and the remastered 1080p Blu-ray, which also features the new Atmos remix. And once again, Warner is the only studio to adopt this routine practice
of defaulting to a lesser audio track—here, a lossy one—which is just as technologically inept today as it was in 2006.
Once you've selected Atmos, you'll be treated to a remix of the same careful and deliberate
quality as appears on The
Matrix UHD. The
layers of sound aren't different, just better, with each
element of the elaborately engineered sonic environment distinctly audible without being popped
out to the point of distraction. The action begins immediately with Trinity's assault on the power
facility (a sequence that will be repeated at greater length later in the film), which combines
explosions, shattering glass, body blows, gunfire and bullet hits, all neatly positioned and
directionalized. Zion is a full-blown city, continuously humming with life and activity in all
directions. The famous highway chase is a unique demonstration of the mixer's art, combining
realistic sounds of crunching metal and machinery with Don Davis' urgent score and a few eerie
moments of quiet, consistent with the fact that what's happening with these drivers and vehicles
isn't "real". The Merovingian's restaurant/banquet hall is particularly enjoyable, with its
understated clinks of glasses, china and silverware and the quiet swish of fine linens, napkins and
tablecloths—all of it complementing the character's self-satisfied sense of superiority.
Dialogue remains seamlessly integrated and perfectly prioritized, and Davis' scoring and songs
are just as vividly rendered as on The Matrix UHD. This is Atmos done right, and the more
speakers your system has to assist in the object-based placement of the effects, the better it will
sound.
As with The Matrix UHD, Warner has separated the independent special features onto a separate
disc, except that with both Reloaded and Revolutions, they've dropped some of them:
specifically, the films' trailers and TV spots. Who knows why? They've also failed to take
advantage of the extra space now left vacant on the 1080p feature disc to maximize the bitrate,
which clocks in at a measly average of 20.97 Mbps, with over 10 Gbs of space left unused. As
with the audio authoring, it's 2006 all over again. (And once again, these are choices made by the
executives overseeing the project. Perhaps inadvertent choices—certainly ignorant ones—but
choices nonetheless.)
As I did with The Matrix on 4K, I have not attempted to retrace the history of extras that the
series has accumulated over the years. I have simply listed the extras included in the UHD
package, so that readers can make their own comparisons to whatever version(s) they already
own. As an aid to such comparisons, I have also included a listing of the extras previously appearing on the single-disc release
of the original Reloaded Blu-ray that
Warner has now
chosen to omit, even though they would have fit on any one of the three discs in the package.
Also, I have not given this release a rating for extras. What is the point of rating a "feature" so
obviously incomplete that it requires retaining (or acquiring) additional discs just to restore what
should have been there in the first place?
There are sequences in the Matrix sequels that I still enjoy, and I suspect I'm not alone in finding
these films more pleasurable in small doses. Neo's encounter with the Architect in Reloaded is
always good for a chuckle; the more you listen to the old man's clipped dialogue, the more
ridiculous it gets—and more entertaining as a result. (It was the first hearing that disappointed;
after so much buildup, the Wachowskis delivered a "payoff" that undid everything the first
film established, leaving the audience to feel cheated and betrayed.) And the early subway station
reunion of Neo and Trinity in Revolutions has the passionate intensity of a great love story, even
more so when you know where the couple is heading.
Taken as a whole, however, the movies are laughable, and never more so than when the two
worlds of "real" and "data" carefully delineated in the first film begin to merge, with Neo's
"data" powers leaking into the "real" world and Agent Smith successfully integrating himself
into a human body. The trilogy's ending is a joke—much like the omitted extras, cramped
bitrates and ignorant authoring decisions featured in these two UHD packages. Don't bother
acquiring them unless you're already equipped for UHD or expect to be soon, because the
remastered 1080p discs aren't that big an upgrade. If you're already UHD-capable, then you
won't be disappointed with the 4K image and sound, but keep your existing Blu-ray sets, and
above all remember to select the Dolby Atmos track, or you'll find yourself wondering why the audio is so ordinary.
2003
2003
Remastered
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
1999
2003
Limited Edition
1997
Director's Cut
2009
20th Anniversary Edition
1996
2020
2004
2009
2015
2012
2010
+BD with the 3 versions
1991
2009
2008
2005
1997
2015
2001
1080i
2003