Lame (**)

Rating: 4/10 (5 November 2003)

And....out goes the "Matrix" trilogy. With a thud.
"The Matrix", the original, was a brilliant movie. It was unique, creative, mindbending, exciting, and above all, FUN.
"The Matrix Reloaded" was significantly less fun (too many dull, pretentious speeches) but it was a good movie, and the freeway chase is a phenomenal action sequence that will deservedly be remembered for a long time.
And now we have "The Matrix Revolutions", which takes everything that was bad about "...Reloaded" and magnifies it. The storyline (machines vs. mankind, etc...) that was interesting in the original because we only saw the edge of it all, has been stretched out to a ridiculous limit like string cheese, and rendered sloppy and meaningless. The further you go with this plot, the sillier it gets.
Nothing has changed from the last film. There's Neo, there's Morpheus, there's Trinity, there's a bunch of dirty extras, there's the slow motion, there's a bunch of Agent Smiths, there's that same music. What's missing is any sense of interest in the story. The makers obviously just like to toy with our heads, which is evident in dialogue like ("Who is he?"/"He is you." or "What do you want?"/"I want what you want"). That's about as "deep" as it gets.
Naturally, I have to point out that the special effects are great. It's a great film to LOOK at, some of the time. But that won't carry a movie. With the exception of a few scenes, it's a repetitive, pointless movie that does nothing to advance OR conclude the storyline that was so good the first time around.
And I haven't even mentioned the Zion Council who dress like Funkadelic, or the part where the good guy-controlled giant machines "pump their fists" (which got a good laugh from the audience, as many parts did), or when Neo goes to visit the Wizard of Oz. You heard me. That's what it looked like.