we've made an unexpected breakout hit which succeeded in part because of its clever mixing of CG and groundbreaking practical effects, what do we do for the sequel?
It's such a shame that with each film it degrades in quality. The Matrix was outstanding, The Matrix Reloaded was not nearly as good, but you could see there was still passion put into the movie, the Chateau fight and the highway scene were still so very well done except for the shoddy CG in some places. The Animatrix was so fascinating. The third film is just where it completely fell flat for me. I'm glad they never made any more films after that, I'd hate to see what they would do to ruin things further.
I think it marks the moment where Hollywood finally went, "average CGI is just as good as exquisite in camera and practical fx".
The big thing about the first Matrix being the wonderful wire work and bullet time. To sell that out with a Gary's mod version of Agent Smith was a real mis-step.
But I'm sticking with the sound effect and the reason being that they knew the CGI looked comical, so they leant into it with the bowling alley foley.
Rather than going, 'this doesn't work' they decided to make it a feature.