You'll only want to buy The Matrix Revolutions to see how the story ends. There's nothing new here, and the story is so diluted it gets boring. Not worth a second viewing. Still, I give it three stars because of the story behind the entire series. This movie itself only deserves two stars.

"The Matrix Revolutions", the last in the Wachowski brothers' super sci-fi trilogy, is a mixed bag of criticism. Most of us already know what everybody else thinks based upon the surprisingly low opening weekend box office of $48.5 million that the film barely scraped, a direct reflection upon the consensus of the "Matrix Reloaded" back in May of `03. That's right, folks - for those who were disappointed with "Reloaded", "Revolutions" will only upset your expectations even further. For those who eat up every fat morsel that the film industry serves up piping hot from the griddle of hype (the teaser trailers in combination with the cheeky Powerade TV ads), you'll love it pound for gluttonous pound.

The remainder of this now flaccid storyline has Zion up crap creek without a paddle, their firepower no match for the hundreds upon thousands of Sentinels about to breach the core of the city. There is something afoot in the Matrix as well - the malicious Agent Smith (Weaving) has proliferated himself throughout the entire system and is more than prepared for a final confrontation with Neo (Reeves). However, Neo is preoccupied with what measures must be taken to ensure the safety and survival of Zion whilst Trinity (Moss) ever-faithfully prepares herself to accompany him on his most perilous mission yet.

As exciting as this apocalyptic final chapter sounds, you know you've lost something when the story completely overwhelms the characters. Neo, Trinity and Morpheus used to be some pretty damned interesting folks. In the film that began it all, Neo was introduced as a cocksure novice who slowly but surely realizes his true potential. Trinity was a strong and admirable yin to Neo's yang, a woman equipped with a lethal combination of beauty and brains. Morpheus was a wise but humble seeker of truth, a teacher not abject to learning from others.

Where the hell did these people go?

They were killed off by one deadly mechanism: FRANCHISE. This was the point at which art was sacrificed for profit and the Wachowskis lost themselves in the high-tech impressionism of computer graphics imaging. What started as a fantastic premise full of possibilities has resorted to eye-candy for the action movie catalog, a by-product of overzealous marketing.

Aside from this noticeable change in the scheme of things is another inexplicable move - the film's grandiose conclusion. Many people will be baffled as well as fuming, the ending leaving more questions with nothing to provide any answers. The most significant resulting quandary is why some of us chose to spend nine dollars on over two hours of visual excess only to be swindled by a cryptic ending. Sorry to say that the entertainment industry has suckered the lot of us once again.

Let's face it - the only real fun to be had here is by the actors and you gotta hand it to Hugo Weaving - he's successfully managed to find himself a character in which he can completely indulge in all its salacious evil. The bad guys always seem to have more fun in overwrought productions such as this and Weaving is clearly having a blast as Smith, cackling and smirking to the hilt while his markedly arched eyebrows and piercing blue eyes consume the screen.

Reeves, on the other hand, puts no more energy into his acting than what's required and let's face it - there isn't much of a requisite for emotion. His designer wardrobe, stylish shades and killer moves are the real showcase and Reeves excels at this but nothing more. Moss retains her cool surface as does Fishburne, along with Pinkett-Smith as the resolute Niobe. Don't expect much to change; these are repeat performances, after all. Mary Alice joins the cast as the Oracle and the presence of a new face in a familiar role is only a bittersweet reminder of Gloria Stuart's passing (a vague explanation was written into the script for why the Oracle appears physically different).

Bottom line: If you're just dying to know how it all ends, go ahead and spend the few bucks to rent it. Just don't expect to be illuminated or amused by it all (or to get your money back!).

it doesn't live up to the stunts that were performed in 1&2. Yet all that battle came to a satisfying end in an unlikely manner which made the movie..."still good"

The last in a sequence of 3 movies called Matrix. An interesting conclusion to the sci-fi of the first 2. Intriguing. If you like some mind games in a movie this is for you.

I remember when this film opened in the theaters worldwide to tremendous excitement and anticipation. It was written up in newspapers, people took off work to see it when it opened the first day. Theaters were sold out and lines were unbelieveable. And then the let down and dissappointment that followed. When I went to see the film, the auditorium for this movie was empty. And the movie had only been open less than a week. And it was easy to see why. The ending of the movie was a terrible dissappoinment. Real life is tough, I like happy endings in my entertainment, and I did not get it here. I was waiting for Neo to save the day, to reunite with his lover, to either overcome the machines, or to negociate some sort of peaceful co-existance between humanity and the machines. The wonderful idea, played with in the first two films, that there was, within the machine complex, programs that had gained invidvidual conciousness and action, who wanted to go on existing as individuals and make peace with humanity, was not brought to any kind of fruition here. Neo died without purpose. The lovers are lost forever. The human race was not saved--the machine world was. The machine world will continue as before, with humanity being used as living batteries. The free city of Zion, while not totally destroyed, is now no longer secret, and secrecy was their only true defense. The machines now know where Zion is, and can destroy all free humanity whenever they become too much trouble. Where in the first film, it seemed that Neo was humanity's hope against the machines, it turns out that the machine had used Neo to preserve itself. He dies for nothing; his sacrifice, humanity and love gone to waste. He dies to preserve the machine world. Personally, I would have preferred that the human race perish than continue forever in this world as fodder for the machine complex. And what in the world happened to the character of Morpheus? Morpheus was strong, dignified, a powerful leader in the first two movies. In this one, his character has totally changed. He bearly appears onscreen, and when he does, he is fearful, weak, ineffectual and completely useless. Others take over the leadership role and Morpheus is religated to the background. Nothing comes of the terrible sacrifices that he suffered. And the action sequences in the film really did nothing for me. In one scene, the rogue computer program Agent Smith appears as a plodding giant in a stylized cityscape---for all the world like the Staypuffed Marshmallow man scene from the Ghostbusters!! Doesn't it occur to anyone in Hollywood that a movie with a happy ending sells better? This movie ranks in the same dissappointment range as the third movie of the Pirates of the Caribbean does.