Better than the second not nearly as good as the first

Rating: 6/10 (6 November 2003)

This is the most reluctant seven I think I could ever give. The screen play is worth a two, the technical achievements of the movie our worth a ten so the average comes up to a six. I entered seven on the rating but I'll see if can change that. While I comment on this movie it is impossible to talk about this movie without talking about the second Reloaded since they feel like just one movie split into two.
Revolutions has some of the most amazing special effects ever made and good performances (with lousy dialog). It also doesn't have the embarrassing rave/sex scene in the second movie.
However, it suffers from poor dialog and spending too much time in Zion (a place dreary at best). The dialog seems mostly to be reiterations from the second movie. Unlike others I don't see that free choice is a bad idea concept of basing the movie on, but it never gives a good idealogical reason why free choice is important.
The problem of the movie still relates to the dreary design of Zion. Words do mean things and Zion is the mount to where the Temple of Jerusalem was placed; the word Zion also is often used for the Jerusalem and Israel itself. With the technology at their disposal why couldn't Zion seem something like Hobbiton: a true alternative to the dreary Matrix skyscraper world and reality of how the earth now exists. Instead we are given a world that seems inferior the skyscraper construct of the Matrix and makes us think that Cypher's choice in the first movie wasn't illogical while highly immoral.
The two Matrix sequels seem to be afterthoughts. Instead of thinking about a world that most people would want to save (Zion) we instead are fed the most basic sort of philosophical ideas and excellent special effects. Characters are given limitations (Oracle and Neo) that seem to just be created so give us a chance to have sequels, not to improve the story. Does anyone think that Neo would seem to be as super-powered as he was if there were a sequel intended?
What the creators of the Matrix don't realize is that people fight for what is behind them: their families, friends, towns and country, not what is in front of them. The first Matrix movie could get away from this because we could imagine Zion as a wonderful place. However its reality makes it a much difficult to imagine people wanting to fight for it. There is a scene in this movie where we are drawn into Merovingian's club which seems amazing like the rave scene from Reloaded and you wonder: why do I think that these are the villains and the citizens of Zion as the heroes?
A sequel (and there are few) has to give good reasons to why there is a sequel. Aliens dealt with the problem of all those eggs left on the surface of the planet we saw in Alien. The Godfather II let us see what made Corlone into the monster that we saw in Godfather I. There is no reason that the resolution given in this movie is superior to the original resolution in the original Matrix and that is what makes this movie sad: for it has reduced the importance of the ending of the one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, The Matrix.