There are segments of the second movie and the story that actually serve to further the story and developments, and for the most part they work. However, large segments of the second movie were simply bad and incongruous with the whole. The philosophy was heavy handed. The chase scenes were overly long. There was an 8 minute rave. The writing was more stilted than in the first. The second movie should have been edited by at least a 1/3 and refined.

As a result, I don't feel that the second movie can really stand on its own, depending on the third movie to directly carry on the plot elements. The third movie was poor thus making the ultimate value of the second movie poorer for the dependency.

The Wachowski's got so wrapped up in this 'deep' philosophy that they were trying to bring, and I remember that they would talk endlessly about it in articles and interviews, that the actual movies and story suffered from it in both the later movies.