Hmm...never quite lived up to the promise....

Rating: Null/10 (9 April 2004)

Well, the third is out, and I have to say, it never really lived up to the promise of the first movie. A surprise? To many I don't think so. The original movie was a triumph for the fact that it came out of no where, a complete success because of it's lack of publicism.
By the second and third, it feels like the great conceptual world created by the brothers has become in some way tainted by their desire to pack in the blockbusting, buttock chafing special effects. I heard Joel Schumaecer getting rather excited about the movie 'changing the way films will be made for years to come.' I really hope someone in Hollywood didn't see this as the Gospel truth: extract story, Check...Add over the top stunts touted as the best thing ever seen! (over protracted, especially with the CGI Neo vs. 50+ Smith's in the third!)
What the third succeeds in is proving to me that big money can be the ruin of any great idea. The acting seems stilted, Keanu tries too hard to be serious (what a lack of human emotion, is he human....) and the story never gets any where. What you do get is more and more heroic/metaphysical mumbo jumbo, that makes less sense than a chocolate tea-pot. I don't even for one minute believe the actors even know what happened.
See this for a conclusion, but don't expect anything life changing or satisfying. I came out of the cinema, and as I walked down the steps to the exit, throughout the whole of the cinema came the loudest, possibly record breaking sigh i have ever heard. Not from being touched by the film; from a mass of cinema goers realising they had jusy parted with a sum total of Â£10 upwards, and would never again get back the 4 hours or so spent on watching this.