Just.....bad

Rating: 3/10 (3 December 2010)

***note this review is of both reloaded/revolutions, as they are, for all intents and purposes one movie split up for separate releases in order to better cash in*** ***spoilers*** I distinctly remember the degree of anticipation I had to see see Reloaded and Revolutions, as did a great number of people I knew. The original Matrix was a great B action movie that I think gave pretty good closure to the story arc presented (Neo realized he is "the one", frees humanity, everyone is happy, the end... works for me).
No one will ever be able to convince me that reloaded and revolutions are what the W brothers truly envisioned as the grand arc for this story. What made the original great entertainment was the juxtaposition of the "real" world and the "matrix" world. People were powerless outside of it, but within the matrix anything was possible. The formula was simple and effective and, most importantly, the action was more or less contained to the world of the matrix, which made the "real" world that much more believable and the matrix that much more of an effective plot device.
The Matrix sequels destroy that construct and instead we get...... lots of dark chase-style scenes involving spaceships, giant robots shooting guns over and over and over.... and lots of flat exposition with little to no bearing on whats going on.
There are of course plenty of giant plot holes and huge lapses in logic, but I can excuse those for the most part since it is, at its heart, a big dumb action movie and most big dumb action movies have those things.
The major issue, beyond what has already been stated, lies in that wherein the first matrix the connection between the real and matrix world is well defined ( i.e. how they got in, how they got out, how things could be accomplished within) in order to set up tension, here it is just muddled and vague. Characters appear places and things happen in the matrix because... well.... they just do. There are several long sequences which serve little to no ultimate purpose (the train station, neo's dreams and saving trinity, neo's fight with the 1000 smiths in the park, agent smith "entering" the real world, which, far as i can tell, only served to make an excuse for neo to be blinded.... and I could go on) other than to be obvious filler for a pair of movies that EASILY could have been condensed into one 2 hour movie.
(as an aside... think of what actually happens in these movies plot-wise.... machines are coming to zion... machines get to zion... agent smith becomes, to put it simply, all powerful, neo must stop agent smith so that the matrix is not destroyed.... and thats it... the entire zion fight scene could have been condensed into a few short scenes showing the robots getting closer and closer until they are stopped at the last moment because of neo... the same effect could have been done by doing this instead of going through an hour of anonymous people shooting machines over and over, only to be defeated and need neo to save them anyway)
And of course there are the painfully stock characters, the flat, monotone dialog and the wooden supporting acting (save for agent smith, the absolute only positive part of these two movies)..... but all of those things could have been overlooked if the basic set up of the movie followed the idea as the first.... but that movie would have been a little tricky to make, and alas, the W brothers went the easy route of giant anonymous robot battles, "inspiration" speeches, and vague pseudo-speak about "choice" and "destiny".
These movies are bad and more importantly, lazy. Avoid them at all costs.