Also disappointed

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 2003)

(Possibly spoilers ahead)
Just saw Revolutions yesterday, and I've got to admit I was disappointed. Not just with the level of sub-Zen pish dialogue that the brothers have weaved into their movie (again), but also with the fact that once I came out of the cinema I just didn't care about what I'd just seen.
Watching the whole Matrix trilogy is a bit like going out on an all night bender - you start off having the time of your life, get a bit depressed, confused and subdued in the middle, and then just forget large chunks of the evening as you get drunker. Revolutions is the last stage. Reams of plotlines appear to have been forgotten in the haste to produce awe-inspiring CGI effects, whereas the final defence of Zion is fairly inconsequential. You don't care about the cannon-fodder gunners in their Aliens-rip-off robo-suits. Or the huddled masses of humankind cowering in the temple from millions of sentinels. It just washes over you with about as little earth-shattering profoundness as possible.
As for Neo and Trinity, the Wachowskis have managed to produce the kind truly woeful love dialogue that George Lucas would be proud of. "I love you. You gave me my wish." gushes Trinity as she lies impaled on about ten metal spikes (cue audience sniggering). And Neo's sudden ability to "see" the machine world after he's blinded? Pfhhrrt! What about the painfully obvious "Smith's now in the real world" thing that gets drawn on for about FIFTEEN MINUTES, even though the intelligent film-goer has realised that well before the cretins on screen do. Grrr...
As final showdowns go, however, its not bad at all. The effects in the "real world" are stunning, and the final Smith-vs-Neo battle is entertaining, but the over-schmaltzy ending belies what could have been a fairly dark and satisfying final scene. The problem is that instead of just sticking with the Matrix as a groundbreaking science fiction experience, the films have been permeated with a messiac, overblown spirituality that just doesn't work. Its the kind of pseudo-Zen, quasi-Kant, over-rated, lazy, flawed, spirituality-driven bollocks that you'd expect to hear in any undergraduate student's dorm after a few joints. And its forced down your throats so much it makes you sick.
Get Ridley Scott in to do a directors cut, slash the philosophy and fuse Reloaded and Revolutions together. Now THAT would be a great movie.