I liked it very much!

Rating: 10/10 (6 November 2003)

When I heard Fox had bought the rights to a live-action adaptation of the anime series DRAGONBALL, I was worried... until I saw Neo's last fight with Smith. I didn't catch the Smith-Anderson etymological metaphor of artifice vs man until then. All that was missing were fireballs--I hope I'm not spoiling anything by saying that.
Big problem: who cares who dies in Zion? The only characters who've gained my sympathy in RELOADED were the kid and Link--his gf was on the verge of annoying. Locke, councillor Hamann, Bane, Bane's captain, all the other captains except Morpheus and maybe Niobe, Mifune, the funny-looking lady heading the council, they could all have been sent unarmed on the front line, and the movie would still have maintained its emotional integrity. So when I saw Sentinels "sit down," they gained over all the sympathy I'd saved up for the Zionites. Not that they are all mediocre people, but they get as much pity as strangers we would read about in the obituaries. Even the artificial Indian family we see at the beginning has more sympathy from me than the faceless or characterless populace of unplugged humans. The Merovingian! great character! His wife Persephone! Nearly even better! Had they been fighting the Sentinels, I would have bawled my eyes out. Had the Ghost twins or the tall Werewolf or the Asian goon with the beige coat working for the French man from Reloaded been on the losing side of the battle, I would have had more emotional investment in the war. From playing the game, I would have wished Ghost's character would get more of a story. The only people I got to care about were Neo and Trin and they seemed to only be making a guest appearance in the film (I'm exaggerating).
Sadly, the unfortunate substitution of the role of The Oracle took away all the love I had for one of my favorite characters from the first two movies.

A smaller problem: Maybe it was because they were tyring to make a point of separating physics of the real world with those of the Matrix, but the lack of physical damage noticeable on the characters of Smith and Neo felt like watching a video game lacking much needed damage skins. The fights seemed inconsequential, and therefore of lesser importance. Even in RELOADED Neo was bleeding when he stopped the sword... *SPOILER* Not to mention albeit thrilling, the Neo recapture was conducted with an ease that made me question the threat of his captors. Morpheus seemed to be a bigger fish to catch in THE MATRIX.*END SPOILER*
yet I really liked the end. Duality is a shallow concept, but I liked the movie nonetheless. I'm afraid I don't have many friends with whom I'll be able to share my appreciation of these three movies.