Just like I imagined

Rating: Null/10 (3 January 2004)

After seeing "The Matrix Revolutions" I made sure to come online as soon as possible to see where I left off with my review of "Reloaded." I ended the latter review predicting, but hoping against the Wachowskis collapsing under the weight of their material. Now that I've seen the final instalment in the "Matrix" trilogy, my own prophecy was correct - the Wachowskis tank, and they tank hard. This film makes for one of the most disappointing trilogies in film history since the Star Wars prequels (I know we have yet to see the final instalment there, but do you really think that series can resurrect itself from lines like, "We live in a real world! Come back to it!") The looser ends created by "Reloaded" have an attempted mending in "Revolutions," and they fit to some degree, but they don't make a tight whole. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie-Anne Moss sing a swan song for their careers in "The Matrix Revolutions."
250,000 sentinels have begun digging down into Zion, one for every man, woman and child in the last surviving human city, and all the humans have on their side are hope, mech warrior and a whole lotta bullets. And oh yes, there's Neo, but by this point he's become little more than a vegetable, having passed out and sunk into limbo after a face-to-face confrontation with a sentinel at the end of "Reloaded." Also, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) has uploaded himself into the real world via the body of Bane (Ian Bliss), a soldier on a ship fighting alongside the Nebuchadnezzar.

Neo wakes up, finding himself in the Mobil train station (an anagram for Limbo) unable to leave at the behest of the Trainman (Bruce Spence) in the most gripping scene of the film. Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph (Sing Ngai), the Oracle's bodyguard from the first film, are left with the task to get him out, forced to make quick work of the Trainman and bring Neo back to the real world. The fate of humanity hangs in the balance, of course. Meanwhile, Trinity and Morpheus are forced to dispose of the Merovingian, which the Wachowskis solve by dropping him out of the story without resolution. Easy as that.
The human resistance arms itself for battle amongst all this philosophical banter, and is set into the most draining action scene of the series as they are set upon by the machines in the forms of enormous drills which allow them a path into Zion. The human race tries as it might to stop the onslaught by the use of Mech Warrior-like machines that unload clip after clip against them. They enjoy some success, but cannot defeat the machines alone - they require the help of Neo, who has committed himself to enter the Machine City (01, for those who've not yet watched "Animatrix: The Second Renaissance") so that he may negotiate a peace with the central brain of the Machines, appropriately called Deus Ex Machina (Henry Blasingame).

In the Matrix, Agent Smith has copied himself into an army of... well, himself, and is infecting programs of the Matrix each time he copies himself again. He has now gone rogue and fights no longer with the Machines who created him - humans and machines have a common enemy, and Neo is the only one who can stop him and, hopefully, secure a peace for Zion. This negotiation will culminate in the answers to everyone's questions, to Neo's fate and purpose, the future of humanity, and whether everything the Architect told him at the end of "Reloaded" was true. To recap quickly, the purpose of "The Matrix Revolutions" is to answer for us if Zion will be destroyed a sixth time and if Neo will survive it and begin a new Zion so that it can be destroyed once more. The humans and Neo have much to fear, for the Machines have destroyed Zion five times already and have become "increasingly efficient at it."
"The Matrix Revolutions" has been passed off by most critics and audiences as a terrible movie that does not tie up any loose ends that were made loose by "Reloaded." This is not completely true, but may seem so to anyone who does not understand what the "Matrix" trilogy is based on. The best way to understand the story is to see it in Biblical terms, seeing the Real World as Heaven and the Matrix as Hell. Agent Smith and his minions were cast out of Heaven for defying the natural order (by surviving after being destroyed) and have embarked on their own agenda. The Machines want to punish humanity with complete destruction (Genesis Flood story) for having helped him come back to a level of strength that rivals the Machines, and Neo, the obvious Jesus figure, is the only one who can save humanity by defeating Smith. Neo and Smith coexist as an unbalanced equation kept that way by the Oracle (Mary Alice) and the defeat of one over the other would balance that equation. Hence, the future of humanity hangs in the balance.
The trilogy tells a very interesting story, filled with allusions to mythology, religion and philosophy, but ultimately fails to deliver the closure that its fans, audiences and critics were hoping for. This is due partially to the quality of the writing which is, well, terrible. Just as Roger Ebert said it himself, in the first film Agent Smith was the only one who spoke in monotone - in "Revolutions," everyone does. And it's annoying. Smith was an interesting character even when he spoke in such a monotonous voice, but that does not mean the human characters had any place to do the same thing. Now none of the characters mean anything to the audiences and therefore their hearts are not in keeping with the goals of the films.
This is not to say the film is a failure on all counts. There are some very interesting scenes, particular the opening sequence in Mobil, where the Trainman, paralleling the Boatman on the River Styx, refuses to allow the savior to leave and save his people. Even the philosophical ramblings have some merit here, but these are soon forgotten as the central characters head to Club Hell to drop the Merovingian and his wife Persephone from the story. The final battle sequence, as well, between Smith and Neo reaches momentary grandeur as Neo approaches his enemy in a torrential rainfall, all of his minions staring him down from all sides on the street and in the windows of buildings leading up to the big fight. The Battle of Zion is equally spectacular, but it is so long-winded, loud, and obnoxious it's boring. It's basically this movie's version of the Smiths battle in "Reloaded."
At the end of the film, people all over complain that nothing has been explained, but that is only because they must not be aware of the story it is trying to tell. Loose ends are tied together, but no one cares. The beauty of the original "Matrix" is that it told a story under a noirish cloak, and by this film has erupted into the action epic of a lifetime. It doesn't pull that off at all, partially due to the competition from another trilogy, but also that the trilogy loses its appeal some way, somehow by the final film. It is a wonder whether our race will be saved, but we just don't care anymore. 2 stars on a five star scale.