Why does the last movie in a trilogy have to stink?

Rating: 1/10 (9 November 2003)

I've only got 1000 words even though 10000 would be needed, so I'll limit myself to logical flaws in this series at first. In fact, the only way to do the flaws justice would be to spend this entire space going off on one flaw and letting everyone know that there are about 100 others that just keep building as you go from the first masterpiece to the third piece of garbage. I saw the movie for free and still almost walked out. The first movie was so clear in concept, sly in its adherence to a Biblical Messiah story interpretation, creative in special effects, et., but the writers just gave up on vision and went for money as the movies progressed. Either that or they just lost their touch as seen so prevalently with George Lucas.

Let's just tear apart the one flaw that really could have been changed for the better. I'll leave the other 100 flaws for others. Wait, there is one flaw that I'll hit real quick before hitting the other. 150,000 sentinals against about 1000 slow, machine gun toting juggernaughts. For some unknown reason, there are no more EMP's at the base. Any moron would know that doesn't make sense, even if they had sent every single hovercraft out on the failed intercept mission, which also would have been stupid. Anyway, the battle should have lasted about 1 minute or less, but had to go on for 30 minutes like a long drawn out kung fu theatre sequence that was more for the purpose of dance and show than for sense. Machines were just flying around like schools of fish rather than attacking in any intelligent way. Even when they took out the leader, they all (at least 100) went at him in a single file. About 10 coming from different directions at the same time could have taken him out. And why not use the lasers? O.K., may they were programmed to be cruel and slash things to death. And why only one drill came through in the beginning. We saw at least 3-4 in the second movie. Did they disappear like the mystery EMP's?
O.K., back to my other point.
At the end of part 2 when Neo stopped the sentinals, I was really hoping that they would go with the most plausible explanation, that the real world was in fact just another faction of the matrix. In that way, the choices that were belabored in part 2 would only be on false pretenses. I suppose that this concept could still be a possibility, and in fact, may be the only one if we assume that a program such as Smith can traverse the two worlds. Neo could have been the first One to have recognized the pattern. In fact, perhaps he is the first one to self-actualize out of the double matrix and into the real world by his final sacrifice. It surely would make the tag line make more sense. Sure, it splits completely from the Messiah story they started with, but it takes it into a new realm that was only touched on by The Thirteenth Floor and other movies. Imagine the possibilities. The messiah could then form peace in the real real world and release the humans into the paradise that the real real world may be now that machines have been in control of for so long. Machine control linked to Satan influence on Earth. Yada Yada, we've now gone deep into philosophical contexts. That would have been cool. But alas, they decided to just give him the ability to blow up sentinals. O.K., just how did this happen? Why did this happen? In what plausible way does the ability to program in the Matrix parlay into the ability to blow up in the real world. Alright, so that wasn't his only power. He could also see things while blind. But now he can only see machine world items. Once again, making no sense. We could try to make sense by saying that he was somehow seeing energy patterns and that maybe his blowing up of sentinals ability was related to his new sense of electric fields. But wait, he was seeing more than that, like the floor. Was there energy in everything in the machine world? Must have been I guess? And apparently, Neo could see them, and make them blow up. But even after they kill his woman, he decides that rather then use that power to just blow everything up, he'll save humanity. That's about the only time in the movie he wasn't sucking on a bottle being told what to do at least.
List of other problems 1 - The machines don't need us for power. This is obvious, although the architect and the humans seem oblivious to the fact. I won't even get into the biophysics of it, but clearly, if the machines are so advanced and so ahead of humans as eluded to in the Animatrix, they could do it. Perhaps the keep us around as part of their programming. A fail-safe inability to completely irradicate humans. But that is what they were in the process of doing. Maybe they just hate us. If so, why not just kill us and use another power source that caused less problems? O.K., they just hate us. But then, why keep their bargain with Neo? O.K., they hate us, and they can't lie, even to us. Sure, why not?
2 - Neo destroyed the something at the end of part 2, but it must not have been the Matrix since people were still popping in and out of it.
3 - What in the world was the purpose of the train station? I know what they told us was the purpose, but why would they need something to move programs in and out of the Matrix. It's called I/O and they should have been able to do it at the speed of light. And exactly what were they coming to or from? One was the Matrix, and one was the real world, which I guess was the mainframe, but apparently, this all powerful mainframe can be fooled by a train station program. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore because none of it made sense. And even though Neo can blow up Sentinals and reprogram the Matrix, he has no power whatsoever in the train station. Sure, why not.
4 - I'm sure I'm out of space by now.