What I expected

Rating: 4/10 (11 November 2003)

I went to see this movie not because I really anticipated it, but because I had seen the first two and wanted too get it over with.
Action: Matrix are action movies (duh!). Where the first was ground braking in terms of quality, the second was groundbreaking in terms of quantity. The third broke no ground at all. The CG was nice, if a bit stilted in some scenes. I missed any scenes that made me go 'whoa - that was cool'. There was lots of action after the first hour - I'll grant it that. But none really gripped the audience as it was all totally foreseeable (last stand, heroic fight, individuals act bravely, dying command of a hero, last minutes save, some unimportant people die, fall back to last defensive position, enemies behaving stupidly throughout the engagement - they have those nice laser beams - why didn't they use them once? or throw some of their bombs into the dome first...duh.)
Philosophy: All the philosophy that was hinted at in the first movie and which was somewhat continued in the second was blatantly ignored here. Stupid one-liners and questions answered with questions. I must say that what they tried to bite off philosophically would have been more than a dozen movies could chew - but the hype and the extent to which the attempt failed amazed me.
The actors: Hugo Weaving was incredible as always. You can see he is having incredible amounts of fun playing Smith - the man should get an Oscar for best supporting actor. His speeches (at least in Matrix 1&2) and his pronunciation are a feast. As for the others: Trinty actually got me to hate her in this flic. Mostly because she acted like a beaten kitten all the time and due to the interminable death scene. Morpheus/Fishburne was just a subdued little boy reciting his litany 'believe, believe, believe' where he was full of energy in the other movies. Keanu/Neo - lets not go there...if he was the dream-cast for the role then they must have missed the application by a 2x4. The Meregovian - while this character actually had something to say he said the same thing he stated in the second movie over again. Bringing in a number of extra characters was totally superfluous - even if you have seen the Animatrix. Who the hell cared about 'the kid'? What was he there for? Why make him such a big part? Why the trainman? He doesn't do anything for the story. (and the joke in Mobile (=Limbo?) Ave was rather foreseeable/lame. I knew what would happen as soon as the camera stopped following Neo *yawn*.)
To make a long story short: Go rent it on DVD, so that you can at least say you have seen them all. Don't waste your bucks for this.