The Wachowski's raise the stakes, and with it shorten the margin for error; as inconsistencies and frustrations mar the final installment of the Matrix franchise.

Rating: 5/10 (8 August 2010)

The Matrix Revolutions marked a sorry end for one of, certainly at the beginning, the most creative; most original science fiction films running on a smart premise we'd seen for some time. Where smarts; intelligence and well drawn nightmarish worlds complete with engaging ideas to do with life, existence, the universe and everything was once the predominant item on the menu, all has given way in the second Matrix sequel to flurries of "What on EARTH!?" moments; uninvolving love stories and dull causality culminating in a stupefying Tekken inspired fight sequence between two characters. The Wachowski's ideas featured in 1999's The Matrix were reigned in; they were kept in check, never feeling as if they were bigger than the project itself and explored in a dramatic and thoroughly substantial manner. The Matrix Revolutions appears tired with its origins, bored even; like the cleverest student in the class whom sits at the back just not feeling up to it on the day of the big exam, and falling just a little short of the pass mark when so much more was expected of them.
As the piece crawled towards the end of its one hundred and twenty five odd minute run time, nearly all sense of immersement and respect for the trilogy was on the way out of the window, and I was praying their God-like Architect character would simply walk onto the screen, turn to the camera, hold up a remote control of some kind and just press a button that would make the screen go black. "Now, we are finished......." he would bellow in a gruff, low, robotic tone. What we get is something just as stupid, but less amusing. Revolutions is the point The Matrix ceases to be a science fiction film about ideas complete with an initial, original vision; now rendered a dorky war-come-action film which pastes on a dull love story or two involving the leads and their supporting acts so as to try and insert a bit of heart into proceedings, amidst the gradually less and less interesting teenage orientated spectacle.
The war between man and machine has reached its crescendo, the ultimate showdown between flesh and blood and metal and A.I. has arrived after burning at the back on a hob throughout 2003's other Matrix sequel entitled Reloaded. The eponymous hero of this now chore of a franchise, Neo (Reeves), is stuck in a strange zone of purgatory masquerading as a subway station and cannot get out to aid in the overall struggle. His mentor, love interest and cohorts in the form of the usual suspects Morpheus (Fishburne) and Trinity (Moss) skulk around looking for him as all sorts of different parties, in the form of programmes trussed up in human-being form, knock back nonsense banter about whatever self indulgent; self gratifying themes and subjects the Wachowski's feel they need to instill into the film. One trip to an underground fetishistic themed nightclub contains a fight sequence with guns complete with a stunt that reminded me of the finale to 2001's 3000 Miles to Graceland, the instance in which a guy comes spinning into view from the ceiling with dual machine guns blazing – not a good thing. Having taken two whole films to establish guns are useless in this universe, and pose little threat to those whom fight, it's a wonder the characters still proceed in using them. But it's all spectacle, and most probably acted as good trailer fodder.
There doesn't seem to be much in the way of spine to Revolutions, people flit and hop from incident to incident without much clarity nor apparent reason. One is left persistently wondering where most of the supporting acts stand in their stance on the war overall, the film's complete lack of a hierarchy in this world full of sides, warring existences and clashing ideologies exposing the film-makers' inability to go 'better' after having already gone 'bigger'. Where does a Frenchman and his girlfriend, of whom he seems to have forgiven for her betrayal in the last film, stand? What about the creator and aforementioned God-like character The Architect? Where does he fit into rouge Agent Smith's plans, as an army of machines and their tank equivalents named Sentinels brood in their bid to destroy the human city of Zion. Does any of it matter if The Architect is able to reset everything and play God – does it matter if Zion is annihilated? Nearer the very end, a middle age black woman named The Oracle mopes her way onto screen after some prior interactions with an array of people; where did she fit into all of this and whose side was she on? Whom outranks whom? What does the train driver think of everything? Something may be grossly at stake, but none of it actually matters.
Further pain is inflicted onto the audience during the 'big showdown', a massive fight sequence between the mechanical equivalents of a large spider hybridised with a wasp and named Sentinels with the ground troops of the humans in Zion. Here, the film's shortcomings become grossly apparent in that archetypal mannequins in a young soldier out to prove himself; a General, whom comes complete with a Braveheart inspired speech to rally the troops, and the non-soldiers in the form of two women whom feel the need to take the fight to the enemy, systematically allowing the makers to make it look as if they're addressing the issue of female empowerment amidst this war-zone, begin to take over as central to providing us with human characters as the spectacle moves in. Agonisingly, amidst the millions of people in Zion at the end, it's the General and the grunt whom just happened to bump into one another. Small incidences like that only fuel the feeling of the film's robotic, metallic and dulling temperament; where once was freshness and excitement is now occupied by the droll and incidental, and it sure is relieving to know it's all over.