A Brilliant Finale

Rating: 8/10 (8 November 2003)

I cannot imagine the series ending any other way. The resolution,
not only for the plot, but for each individual character, is completely
fitting. As the films repeatedly state, it's all about purpose.
Everyone has a purpose. Morpheus's purpose was to find and
train Neo. Trinity's was to love Neo, and to help him along his path
(though she does, in Reloaded, get in his way; this sets him on yet
another path that she must help him to complete). Neo's purpose
we all know. But even Smith has a purpose. And all complete their
purpose exactly the way they were meant to from the beginning.
Were any of these characters to have found themselves at different
places at the end of the film, it would not have worked.

I felt that the only solution was peace, not military victory, since I
first saw The Second Renaissance in The Animatrix. It occurred to
me then that there was no way the humans could defeat the
machines. Certainly not in one movie. If the entire human race was
defeated in a true World War that saw the death and/or
subjugation of every living inhabitant, then the possibility of this
small band of freedom fighters triumphing was nil. And then I
recalled the Councillor's dialogue from Reloaded: the machines
need the humans just as the humans need the machines. The
only solution was compromise. The two would have to find a way
to peacefully co-exist. Only then would the war be over. It was what
the humans could not do in The Animatrix. The fear the humans
had for the machines drove them to war against them, and led
ultimately to their own destruction and enslavement. It is only when
Trinity, Neo and Morpheus are able to put aside their fear and face
the machines as equals in Revolutions that peace is possible.

The movie wraps up the themes from the previous films brilliantly,
at the same time telling an engaging story layered with exciting
action set pieces.