Reloaded's ropey moments cannot spoil the shock of the Neo

The Wachowski brothers opened up a family-sized can of shock and awe at the Cannes film festival last night with the European premiere of The Matrix Reloaded, the sequel to the smash-hit cyber-thriller The Matrix.

It was an all-new fighting, flying, exploding upgrade to the 1999 model - with some soppy kissing too - and it boasted a freeway chase sequence that even the toughest cynics out here had to admit was simply mind-blowing.

Keanu Reeves plays Neo, one of a defiant band of humans fighting an oppressive race of machines that has enslaved homo sapiens, turning men's and women's bodies into fuel, allowing them to experience only an illusory existence called the matrix. Laurence Fishburne is the massively calm and virile Morpheus and Carrie-Anne Moss plays the PVC-clad Trinity, who is now Neo's love interest. (Neo at one stage appears to call her "Trinny". Hmmm, interesting, considering clothes are clearly important to her.)

Neo and the others are defending the humans' last redoubt: the city of Zion, as the machines head there with destruction on their minds. And Neo has something else to contend with: his adversary, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), has replicated himself a hundred times for combat sequences that resemble a punch-up in a hall of mirrors.

The Matrix Reloaded delivers in skipfuls what its fans want: superbly stylish and distinctive wire-fu martial arts sequences from the choreographer Yuen Wo Ping and the visual effects designer John Gaeta. There is also, for the undergraduate section of the Matrix's fanbase, plenty of cogitating about existence, with Keanu's brow furrowing over the nature of "choice" - an emphasis that's caused the Matrix movies to be taken very seriously indeed in some quarters.

I'm not sure I can buy this skinny-latte philosophising, and there are some parts of the movie which are worryingly ropey: particularly senatorial meetings of a sort of Starfleet command, which look a bit Phantom Menace, and Agent Smith's self-duplication, which makes him appear to be suffering from an attack of the clones.

But there is so much that is viscerally exciting - especially that freeway sequence which has chases on motorbikes, cars, and a fight on top of a truck.

All that, and a wildly popular scene with the actor Lambert Wilson demonstrating to Neo, Trinity and Morpheus how satisfying it was to swear in French. That had local festivalgoers cheering in the aisles.