Convoluted and confused but Matrix fans will enjoy it

Rating: 6/10 (6 November 2003)

May contain SPOILERS!
Make no mistake the Matrix trilogy was ambitious. The first film was as tight and well done as the second film was sloppy. The third film in the series "Matrix Revolutions" continues the Wachowski brothers foray into the world of destiny, technology, religion, and spirituality with mixed results.

There are some great and engrossing scenes in this film and some mind-blowing effects. In fact, the effects are so frequent and so much a part of the narrative (and seemingly every shot) that the viewer's mind quickly dismisses the technical achievement of this film. They shouldn't.

What should be dismissed is the painfully obvious attempt to include a person of every race, creed, ethnicity etc. The cast of surviving humans is annoyingly predictable. The film is basically "Tron meets Terminator". Think about it. Self-aware machines have all but decimated mankind except for in a virtual world of their creation where the battle is fought between programs who have "users" in the real world.
Issues like hope, faith, free will, resurrection, predestination, and redemption are brought up often, but the writer-director(s) don't follow through with their thoughts. It's almost as if they were consciously trying to avoid repeating the laughable exposition of the "architect" that was widely criticized in the second film. Avoiding that is certainly a good thing. Mixing metaphors and spreading and analogy too thin isn't.
It seems to me that that the strength of Hugo Weaving's performance left the film arguing on behalf of Agent Smith perhaps more persuasively than the Wachowski's would have liked.
However the film was edited well and there were few moments where I cringed at the acting of Reeves. He has a good handle on his character as do the other main cast members. The action and fight scenes were impressive and didn't repeat as much as the second film. All in all, I think fans of the series will be satisfied. Those who thought "The Matrix Reloaded" was as bad as I did will only have their suspicions confirmed by "Revolutions"