Good, but not nearly as good as it could have been

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 2003)

**Note: Possible Spoilers**
While I thoroughly enjoyed the final installment in the Matrix trilogy, the film also left me with a disappointing hollow feeling because it was plain to see that while the film was good, it could have been SO much more than it is. Several questions that are raised in the second movie remain unanswered in the third, and the movie itself raises some further questions which also never get addressed. The first Matrix remains the best of the trilogy, and when you consider the fact that it was originally expected to flop, I think it becomes plain to see that the problem with the second and third installments is that the directors let their success get the better of them, and sort of ran amok with their own little universe, inserting unnecessary characters, pointless (if philosophical) dialogs, and sodomizing the rules of their universe which they laid down in the first movie.
For example, in the second movie, we are introduced to the "Mirovingian" (however you spell it), a sadistic, narcissistic, pseudo-intellectual frenchman who has NO BUSINESS BEING IN THE MOVIE WHATSOEVER. To further annoy viewers, he controls a array of programs which blatantly break the rules of the Matrix by flying around, and phasing out of reality so that they can pass through solid matter, and so on, despite Morpheus's explanation in the first movie that "even programs are subject to the rules of the Matrix" (or something to that effect)...and aside from breaking continuity with the first movie in order to give Trinity and Morpheus some new friends to play with, these programs that can play by their own rules just don't fit logically, either...if it's possible to make a program that can do those sorts of things, then why are the agents as limited as they are? Why wouldn't they have the power to blatantly break the rules as well? Aside from that, there are other things that just don't sit well with me...the keymaker is another POINTLESS character, and while the father of the Matrix is not, his story about "multiple previous Zions" is just laughably preposterous. I remember thinking as I left the second movie "okay, that thing about all the previous Zions was just the creator trying to bluff Neo into submitting, because he knew it was his only chance at stopping him," but alas, instead of going with the plausible, sensible explanation, the third movie CONFIRMS the story about all the previous Zions...throw in some other stuff about a "train man" that just doesn't make sense, and some corny scenes/bad acting/overacting, and an ending that doesn't leave the viewer with a sense of closure (and people saying that it's intentional so that viewers can "invent their own future" be damned...when I go to the movies I want to hear a story, from start to finish, and know what happens to all the characters interesting enough to care about at the end...if I wanted to invent my own endings I'd be writing scripts, not watching movies), and you've got what it takes to turn a potentially exceptional series into merely a good movie.
That aside, there IS a lot to like in this movie. You can FEEL the hopelessness of the defenders of Zion as countless machines pour endlessly into their city. The movie is very dark, and for once it doesn't seem to hold back at all. This is by far the most violent movie in the series (though probably also the one with the LEAST amount of stunning, cinematic fight scenes...like the hallway scene from the first movie...), and it doesn't try to sugarcoat things...people fight and people die, some of them in some pretty terrible ways (I'd give this movie a cringe factor of about 5.5, with a 10 being something like Saving Private Ryan, or a gory, medium budget horror flick with a good plot and engaging characters who are slowly and violently...and graphically...killed). This movie has much more "real world" time than the other two, and as such, it has a more realistic view of suffering and death.
In conclusion, the final installment of the Matrix is a good movie, but it works best when taken on its own, and not in conjunction with the first movie (though maybe in conjunction with the second). When you think about what the first movie had the potential of becoming, and the fact that the second and third movies don't live up to that potential at all, it's extremely hard to not feel disappointed after seeing the "conclusion" of the trilogy. However, this is not a bad movie, and is still quite enjoyable, especially if you can distance yourself from the expectations that the first movie created...the directors didn't pull it off, and that's sad, but this movie can still be enjoyed for what it is, and cherished for the memory of what it could have been, even though it wasn't.