The balance returns. *Potential Spoilers if you haven't seen the first two*

Rating: 9/10 (6 November 2003)

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MY OPINIONS. READ IT FOR WHAT THEY'RE WORTH, THEN FORM YOUR OWN, BUT DON'T GET ANGRY ABOUT ANYTHING IN HERE.*

Well, the last chapter in the much hyped series has come, and I left the theater with an overall good feeling. The first one walked a fine line of story and great action, and walked it very well. The second movie, in my opinion, lost itself in long scenes of inane techno-babble, bringing up questions that were never solidly answered. The third movie moves the series a lot closer to the balance, but leaning more towards action, and losing some story elements. The way I look at it, this was a good way to balance out the second movie.

In the original Matrix, the Wachowski Brothers gave us something that we hadn't seen done well in a long time, if ever. They gave us a great action movie that had a great story to go along with it. Action movies, in general, give us some great eye candy but don't have a lot of substance to them. They're entertaining, but not deep. Dramas on the other hand, don't have much action but are very deep. The Matrix struck a balance between the two, giving us action sequences that looked great, along with a story that you could delve into and debate about for years. It is one of my favorite movies, probably in the second half of the top ten.

In The Matrix: Reloaded, the balance was lost, horribly, horribly lost. It still had some great action sequences (blatant CG aside, the Agent Smiths fight) but those were overshadowed and pushed aside. Because plunked between those scenes were long speeches by some character we've never seen before babbling about some inane topic that never comes up again. The Merovingian's Causality speech? I knew what he was talking about, but didn't see much reason for it being there. Also, Reloaded contains one of my most hated scenes in any movie I've ever seen. That being the combination Zion rave + Neo/Trinity sex scene. I'm not going to go further than that, but I hate that scene with all of my being. Overall, the action scenes were still very good, but the speeches threw the balance totally out of whack, and Reloaded's pacing felt very odd because of it.

The Matrix: Revolutions found its way much closer to the balance, but was not without its flaws. The pacing of the movie was much better than Reloaded's, caused by the absence of the long sermons that ran rampant within the second movie. The action sequences were, as usual, highly entertaining. One of the main problems I had, however, was with the ending. It didn't seem to answer all of the questions, especially not the ones brought up in Reloaded. I didn't feel a sense of closure when I walked out of the theater. To compare it to another trilogy, the ending of Return of the Jedi seemed much better to me. An epic trilogy brought to a full closing. You feel satisfied after watching it. I didn't feel that way after this movie. Also, some of the dialogue came off as downright cheesy, worse than anything in the first two movies. I said Niobe's "No, we did it" line before she did, and I had no previous knowledge about that scene. (Don't know what I'm talking about? I'm not going to explain it, so watch the movie.) Also, this movie leaned more towards the action side of things than the first two movies did, leaving out some of the story elements that I greatly enjoyed. Despite the problems this movie had, I enjoyed it far more than Reloaded, but not quite as much as the first movie. On that note, I doubt anything will live up to the first one, simply because it came first. It was fresh at the time. The third time around, some of the magic was gone.

Another potential gripe about Revolutions that ties into the loss of story, is that some formerly major characters are pushed into the background. In this movie, we barely saw Morpheus, and he really didn't do much. The Merovingian and Persephone,(his wife) who seemed so important in Reloaded, are suddenly relegated to a few minutes of screen time, never to be heard from again. The same can be said for the Architect, Link, Commander Lock, and others. This movie focuses on a few characters, pushing the rest aside. Fortunately, one of the lead characters is Agent Smith. He is one of, if not the most interesting character in the series, and my personal favorite. In the original, when he classifies humans as parasites, and that whole speech when he's alone with Morpheus made my spine tingle. But, that's not a subject to be delved into right now.

Real quick, I'd like to say something to the people who are going to be reading this. For those of you who support Reloaded's speeches, and are thinking that I just didn't understand, think again. I perfectly understood what they were about; my problem came in the why of things. Those sequences could've been cut or shortened, and nothing important to the storyline of the movie would have been lost. In fact, that would have improved the pacing of the movie greatly. I just think that the Wachowski's made a mistake in sacrificing balance in an attempt to further explain their universe. That brings me to another gripe about the Wachowskis, while I'm at it. In the Architect scene, it felt to me like they didn't want us to understand what was going on. With the Neo's in the television screens in the background the whole time, it was very difficult to catch everything the Architect was saying, which you needed to. It was like they were intentionally trying to distract and confuse us, which I think was a stupid move. That and the other speeches turned off casual fans of the movie. But, enough of my griping, back to the subject at hand.

For those of you who have had the attention span to read this whole thing, congratulations. You're the people who probably understood more of what went on in these movies. You know, the people who delved a little deeper, thought about it, and discussed it with your like-minded friends. But, I digress once again... The Matrix: Revolutions was a return to what made the first movie great, the balance. Something just felt off about Reloaded, but no so here. Though not as deep or insightful as the orginal Matrix, this is still a great movie. The loss of story feels much more natural than when it was heaped onto us in copious amounts. The action sequences were superb, the movie well-paced, but it still had problems. The lack of an appropriate ending, some poorly written dialogue, and the delegation of some formerly important characters, namely. But, look past these and you've got a great movie. Sit back, and enjoy the ride. This one's worth the money you put down to watch it.
Positives: Great action sequences, better pacing than Reloaded, (mostly) good dialogue, excellent special effects. (My favorite: the fist cam.)
Negatives: Lack of a full conclusion, some cheesy, predictable dialogue, important characters pushed aside.
The result: The balance has been restored. Have faith, all those who lost it about five minutes into the Architect's speech. 4.5/5