Not so good

Rating: 2/10 (19 November 2003)

Wow, this may go down in history as the most unsatisfying final act in movie history. The Matrix Revolutions is hopelessly convoluted, weirdly uninteresting, Completely humorless, and entrenched in the excessive CGI-laced hokum of a thousand other nauseatingly stupid action movies. But at least many of those are self-aware in that they're bad, and thus know when to have fun. Revolutions seems to be under the impression it's elevated above those in some capacity. The fact is, if this movie wasn't riding on the coattails of its predecessors, it wouldn't even be a blip on the blockbuster radar.
And it shouldn't have been this lame. The original film was stylish, inventive, and threw in some intriguing philosophy to boot. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it definitely set a new standard for all action movies that followed it. Its sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, was more of the same, just more grandiose and even more confusing for those who had trouble understanding the first film's mechanics. It was also pretentious in some ways and in desperate need of editing. But it was still GOOD, it still worked when all was said and done, if for no other reason than that the action sequences were spectacular (although the Neo human-to-CGI transformations were jarring and painfully obvious).
Revolutions, on the other hand, is a mess. With the exception of Morpheus and Agent Smith (and, however brief his scenes, the Merovingian), none of the series' characters were very interesting. Here, they're flat-out unlikable because not only are they boring, they're weirdly stupid and spout incredibly cliched lines. Those who played the video game Enter the Matrix might see something worthwhile in Ghost and Niobe and "the Kid" is from a sequence in the Animatrix, but who cares? Unlike Star Wars, where the minor characters usually looked cool or had funny voices, the "Expanded Universe" cast here are all useless talking heads, amalgams of soldiers from countless WWII shoot-em-ups or human Jar Jar wannabes (at least Jar Jar was cute for small children. The Kid is apparently some sort of obnoxious replacement for Mouse from the original). The dialogue is simply god-awful throughout the entire film. Any scene that starts out interesting always ends up flat. Characters come and go without a trace, many of whom who were from Reloaded and who fans assumed would be a large part of this entry. Not so, instead they're wasted, being only involved in scenes that are pretty much time-fillers: the "Rescue Neo" sequence serves almost no point and does nothing to advance the plot, instead it's a vehicle for a dull shoot-out and token cameos from the Merovingian and Persephone (and what was the point of the Trainman?!)
The movie goes downhill (moreso) from there. Lots of goofy-looking Mechs ripped off from Aliens shoot a lot of squiddies. Characters die, the audience blinks in indifference; after all, there's no development of their personalities, so why care what happens to them? I ended up rooting for the machines because 1: they look cool and 2: if they did succeed in destroying Zion, no one would have to suffer through another "rave scene" ever again. Neo discovers his destiny a la Luke Skywalker or Aragorn after more needless scenes (they truly serve no purpose, I'm not kidding), but the setup to this is not adequately explained so many will be scratching their heads. The problem is that even if you do care enough to understand fully the events leading up to this movie's huge letdown of a finale, you'll still likely not give a hoot because the story's major players are lifeless; even Morpheus is now Chewbacca in this one (which I guess makes Niobe a very hot Han Solo, also Jada Pinkett Smith is the only actor on the human side who shows some resistance to monotony, as her lines are delivered with genuine passion). Hugo Weaving and his identical buddies gnash their teeth a lot. Mary Alice as the Oracle sounds like Barbara Walters, and her proselytizing has become tiresome.
Ultimately, Revolutions is proof that The Matrix franchise had nowhere to go after Reloaded. The entire series is like a particularly unusual three-course meal: first a tender filet mignon, followed by an after-dinner salad, but ending with a partially melted Junior Size Three Musketeers bar. That's the Matrix Revolutions in a nutshell.