Contradicts Enter The Matrix's intentions of preluding the movie

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2004)

I first watched Matrix Reloaded and played Enter The Matrix to understand the full story, expecting for a good ending, and hopefully giving Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Ghost (Anthony Wong) much larger parts in the movie.
Let's see where we left off previously:
Matrix Reloaded: Neo (Keanu Reeves) is told by the Architect that the prophecy was a lie and there were five previous versions of the Matrix, but also has to choose one of the two doors. One door to save Zion, and another to save Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). Neo chooses to save Trinity, and tells Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne)and Link (Harold Perrineau Jr.) about his conversation with the Architect. The Sentinels find their location and blew up the Nebuchadnezzar. Neo manages to destroy the Sentinels with his recently-created powers, but results him going into a coma. Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and Link were rescued by the crew of the Hammer, a crew led by Roland (David Roberts). Roland explains what had happened recently, including an EMP incident. They found one survivor, who turns out to be Bane (Ian Bliss).
Enter The Matrix: Shortly after destroying the Power Plant, all hell started to break loose, and the player is given glimpses that Bane was actually responsible for the EMP and killing his crewmates. The crew of the Logos get a call from Seraph (Sing Ngai a.k.a. Collin Chou.) Seraph says he brings word from the Oracle and that they must come at once. Niobe volunteers to go to the Oracle and defeats Seraph. Niobe meets the Oracle (with Mary Alice playing the role for the first time) and is not sure if the Oracle is not the Oracle. After Niobe is convinced of the Oracle's new identity, Niobe asks what happened. The Oracle explains to Niobe that the Merovingian became furious after finding out that she decided to help Neo and needed to change her appearance. Niobe asks what happened to Neo. The Oracle tells her that Neo touched the Source and separated his mind from his body (while Neo disabled the Sentinels). Niobe asks if she can free him, and the Oracle told her that Trinity is capable of saving Neo, but will `have to fight her way through hell to do it.' Niobe asks if she could help, and the Oracle replied that is why she called the Logos. She is not sure what is going to happen (namely Smith's on-going rampage in the Matrix). The Oracle said that she cannot see beyond the end. Niobe tries to correct the Oracle only Neo could do that. The Oracle said `I mean we.' She tells Niobe that the path of the one is made by the many and that they all have an important role to play. As Niobe leaves, she gets pursued by dozens of Agent Smiths (Hugo Weaving) and eventually leaves the Matrix. Things get worse as a group of Sentinels found the Logos. Niobe focuses on piloting the Logos away from the Sentinels as far as possible while Ghost focuses on shooting down the Sentinels. The Logos soon hits a dead-end and triggers the EMP, stranding the crew for the time being.
Main story for Revolutions: The crew of the Hammer look at the Matrix screen still trying to search for Niobe and Ghost. As the medic continued to examine Neo and Bane, she started to notice the cuts on Bane's arm, arousing suspicion about him, and the readings of Neo is at a position only possible if he is inside the Matrix. The Hammer gets a call from Seraph. Trinity and Morpheus are told of the situation of what has happened to Neo and they would have to find the Trainman, with Seraph accompanying them. After a few battles, Neo is reunited with everyone else, but visits the Oracle to learn about what he has to do. Moments after exiting the Matrix, the Hammer finds the Logos.
After a long amount of time alone, Neo decides he has to head to Zero-One, the machine city (the same Zero-One from the Animatrix). After some conflicts, Niobe decides to lend the Logos to Neo. Neo and the rest of his allies go their separate ways, with Trinity accompanying him. Niobe, Ghost, Morpheus, Link, Sparks (Lachy Hulme), and the crew of the Hammer attempt to return to Zion. The main objective becomes clear to Neo: ask for peace with the machines while ending Smith's threat in the Matrix, while the Zion Resistance forces tries to protect Zion as much as they can
I had other expectations for the movie, but it turns out that Niobe and Ghost's roles in the movie have once again been minor, but had slightly larger roles (with only Enter The Matrix emphasizing that their tasks are important.). The only action given to the two is getting the crew back to Zion with Niobe as the main pilot while Ghost is one of the gunners (I expected Niobe and Ghost to help Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph out in the Matrix at least.).
My biggest gripe with the movie is the battle with Agent Smith, although the fight was long and as dramatic as possible, the fight started to rip off the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime series. What were Larry and Andy Wachowski thinking when doing the finale of the movie? As for the ending:
(SPOILERS)
The Matrix is NOT destroyed. The Wachowski brothers wanted to create The Matrix Online, a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game and are in the process of creating it along with Ubi Soft.
(end spoilers)
Hopefully, the loose ends will be tied up (for example how is Sati's role important and how big of an impact would she have on both worlds [The Oracle said that if the player met the Oracle as Ghost.]?)
Story review overall: The story is less confusing and slightly tied up the loose ends of Matrix Reloaded, but the con is that they made a few references to Enter The Matrix, and an average movie-goer is not aware of the game so he or she might feel lost in a way (if the audience only sticks with watching the movies alone, they won't get the FULL story.). It is HIGHLY advisable to play Enter The Matrix (or look for the transcript of it at www.gamefaqs.com) and to watch Animatrix to get the full Matrix story (Just watch Kid's Story, both parts of Second Renaissance, and Final Flight Of The Osiris.)
Story disappointments and what COULD HAVE been changed and added:
Changes:

Have the Hammer find the Logos before Trinity and Morpheus go into the Matrix and have Niobe and Ghost accompany them (well, on the other hand, I guess they really needed a break since they went through a lot of events in Enter The Matrix and Matrix Reloaded)

Add some more jokes from Sparks (the `Wipe the windshield while you're at it' line is just not enough)?

Try to show what happened to the crew of the Hammer, and the other gunners (including Ghost)

Additions:

Tie up the loose ends between Trinity's relationship with Ghost. In Enter The Matrix, the players get the message that Trinity and Ghost were close friends and have a brother-sister relationship, but the video game player finds out that Ghost has feelings for Trinity and starts to fall in love with her (at least a good-bye scene between the two?).

Try to show what happened to Neo. Was he killed or just plain unconscious? - Is Niobe's relationship with Lock, or Morpheus (the game gave us mixed messages on this.)?

Acting: A minor gripe I had is that Neo barely had emotions almost through-out the whole movie, except:
(Spoilers again)
When Trinity dies on him. The rest of the cast did quite a great job.
Overall: The story just gets a `good' rating.
7 out of 10.