Four star

THE critics were out in force to damn this sequel before they had even seen it.

How wrong could they be? The opening sequence was better than the first movie altogether.

The effects are unbelievable, the cast stunning, the storyline understandable, the music amazing...must I go on.

The story of the Matrix continues from the first movie of 1999. Neo (Keanu Reeves), who found out he is "the One", faces another problem.

Zion, the last human city left on Earth, deep underground, is going to be destroyed by 250,000 sentinels (hell-raising machines set on mangling mankind) unless Neo can stop them by getting into the Matrix source.

The film is one action sequence after another, a non-stop roller coaster ride which stops at nothing except a few intimate sex scenes between Neo and black PVC-clad Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss).

One scene you can't help noticing is the 17-minute car/motorbike chase and fight with Trinity and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) against some scary looking albino twins and an agent before Neo comes to the rescue.

This movie by, the Wachowski brothers, much like the first, is one well ahead of its time and fingers crossed for the next instalment, Matrix Revolutions, in November.

MS