Truly a disappointment...

Rating: 4/10 (7 November 2003)

After seeing Reloaded, my expectations for Revolutions were lowered, I realized that the Wachowski's weren't going to be able to make good on all the promises and expectations from the first movie. But that being said, I still was looking forward to see how they wrapped up the story. I just never imagined it would be this stupid. Truly a disappointment...
This movie draws from so many different genres, philosophies, archetypes, cliches, etc that it becomes boring and pretentious. The Wachowski's shoot for the moon but miss horribly. You can't say they didn't try though, they have a very visually entertaining and original style. Revolutions is visually appealing (most of the CGI in the movie is very well done), but their storytelling still needs some work. They try to handle multiple storylines and characters with the attention span of Michael Bay movie instead of the meticulous care of a Robert Altman movie.
Revolutions is not a complete failure, there are many scenes that work well. These involve more of the subtle and surreal aspects of the story (ie the ending sequence in machine city, the deeper look into how the matrix program works or the exploration of the moral philosophies of sentient artificial beings). The epic, patriotic, and sappy aspects of the story however do not work well (ie the ending mech battle or the overdramatic love story). And what's with the cheesy one-liners and thinking-aloud statements? I spent half the movie laughing at the rediculous ways the characters acted and spoke.
It's obvious that the Wachowski's are extremely talented, hopefully now they will start using that talent on good original material (and maybe they'll take some writing classes too). Overall I give Revolutions ** out of four stars.