Loved Reloaded, but...

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2003)

**** MAJOR SPOILERS **** I have to say I was disappointed by The Matrix Revolutions. It was
certainly very entertaining, but a bit of a letdown after such an
excellent middle chapter and its reinvigoration of the stand-alone
first film's style and concepts (not everyone agrees, but I thought
Reloaded was one of the best sequels ever). I just thought it was a
shame it all came down to a rather too gooey love story, too basic
good vs evil (life and choice vs Smith's death and purpose  no
more convincing motivation than that) and the fact that Neo really
was the One. Boo! A logical and romantic, rather than mystical and
romantic, conclusion was what I was hoping for. Promising
characters such as the Merovingian and Persephone  and the
Twins  were given little  or no  follow-up; instead we had new
characters (the Trainman, Sati) to use up 'their' screen time (and
needlessly confuse matters). I particularly think that the whole,
mind-blowing Architect confrontation from Reloaded being totally
dismissed (quite literally, by the Oracle just saying, 'Oh, please!')
was such a shame  actually, it was a viewer-disrespecting bloody
great cheat! It had all seemed really promising when we came out
of Reloaded and excitedly talked through all our theories as to
meanings and possibilities... I'd hoped the twists would be
something as clever as a second layer to the Matrix (i.e. Zion),
Smith being a part of the machines' purpose, despite his own
desires and beliefs  as it had seemed Neo was  and/or Neo
being just an ordinary man (albeit a talented programmer) after all.
Instead, it all got heavily messianic (What? So he was Christ 'dying
on the cross' at the end, there?) and more than a bit too
melodramatic. The sense of the ridiculous in the first two films'
more dramatic sequences was just about kept balanced with
humour and knowing geekiness (and helped by the in-your-face
techno music that said: 'Whoah! Isn't this a cool film?!'), but here
we had only the odd glib line for comfort and too few really
meaningful exchanges (and a high-drama orchestral score that
said: 'Aww! Isn't this deep, heart-rending stuff?'). Anyway, a
perfectly fine, even thrilling action film  I especially liked the Bane
confrontation and, of course, the Zion battles  but not the end to
this brilliant trilogy that I would have written.