Better than your average movie, but that isn't saying much

Rating: 6/10 (19 June 2006)

While this movie's special effects are astounding, there is too much that is lacking compared to its prequels.
It seems to be that this film's biggest problem was the lack of the Matrix itself. While the story requires a lot of the "real world" in order to reach the finality, there just isn't enough butt-kicking inside the virtual world that made the original Matrix so popular.
The philosophy and storyline are all there, but it had already been presented in The Matrix: Reloaded. What is left is a "real world" confrontation between humans and machines. Unfortunately, this has already been done in films like the Terminator and Robocop. We needed the majority of the fight to take place inside the Matrix where physics and all that stuff becomes warped and less limited. It is understandable that the fight be taken to Zion eventually, but too much was devoted to it.
This franchise started as a Kung-Fu, martial arts spectacular that tried to combine philosophy with science fiction. Unfortunately, as the franchise progressed, the Kung-Fu became less as the philosophy increased. It is okay if a science fiction action/adventure movie tries to make you think, but it went a bit overboard. And it's not like the message the philosophy conveyed was that difficult of a concept either. But it seemed like the message was made more difficult by the computer-like jargon that was used to speak it.
So I guess its best to stick with the formula that works. Its okay to have a lot of mindless action in a successful franchise that was based on mindless action.